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THE STORY OF THE HILLS. 




i^aan^H 



THE 



STORY OF THE HILLS. 



A BOOK ABOUT MOUNTAINS 
FOR GENERAL READERS. 



BY 



Rev. H. N. HUTCHINSON, B.A., F.G.S. 

AUTHOR OF " THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE EAKTH." 



SgaitJj Sixteen JFull=page illustrations. 



They are as a great and nohle architecture, first giving shelter, 
comfort, and rest ; and covered also with, mighty sculpture and painted 
legend. — Ruskin. 







DEC 5 1^ 

MACMILLAN AND CO. 

AND LONDON. 

1892. 






Copyright, 1891, 
By Macjiillan and Co. 



SHnforrsttg Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



All who love Mountains and Hills 

&\)iz little Book is IBeSiratetf, 



IN THE HOPE THAT EVEN A SLIGHT KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR PLACE 
IN NATURE, AND PREVIOUS HISTORY, MAY ADD TO THE WON- 
DER AND DELIGHT WITH WHICH WE LOOK UPON THESE NOBLE 
FEATURES OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. 



PREFACE. 



Now that travelling is no longer a luxury for 
the rich, and thousands of people go every 
summer to spend their holidays among the 
mountains of Europe, and ladies climb Mont 
Blanc or ramble among the Carpathians, there 
must be many who would like to know some- 
thing of the secret of the hills, their origin, 
their architecture, and the forces that made 
them what they are. 

For such this book is chiefly written. Those 
will best understand it who take it with them 
on their travels, and endeavour by its use to 
interpret what they see among the mountains ; 
and they will find that a little observation goes 
a long way to help them to read mountain 
history. 

It is hoped, however, that all, both young and 
old, who take an intelligent interest in the 



■viii Preface. 

world around, though they may never have 
seen a mountain, may find these pages worth 
reading. 

If readers do not find here answers to all 
their questions, they may be reminded that it is 
not possible within the present limits to give 
more than a brief sketch of the subject, leaving 
the gaps to be filled in by a study of the larger 
and more important works on geology. The 
author, assuming that the reader knows nothing 
of this fascinating science, has endeavoured to 
interpret into ordinary language the story of 
the hills as it is written in the rocks of which 
they are made. 

It can scarcely be denied that a little know- 
ledge of natural objects greatly adds to our 
appreciation of them, besides affording a deep 
source of pleasure, in revealing the harmony, 
law, and order by which all things in this won- 
derful world are governed. Mountains, when 
once we begin to observe them, seem to be- 
come more than ever our companions, — to take 
us into their counsels, and to teach us many a 
lesson about the great part they play in the 



Preface. ■ ix 

order of things. And surely our admiration of 
their beauty is not lessened, but rather increased, 
when we learn how much we and all living 
things owe to the life-giving streams that flow 
continually from them. The writer has, some- 
what reluctantly, omitted certain parts of the 
subject which, though very interesting to the 
geologist, can hardly be made attractive to 
general readers. 

Thus, the cause of earth movements, by which 
mountains are pushed up far above the plains 
that lie at their feet, is at present a matter of 
speculation ; and it is difficult to express in 
ordinary language the ideas that have been put 
forward on this subject. Again, the curious 
internal changes, which we find to have taken 
place in the rocks of which mountains are com- 
posed, are very interesting to those who know 
something of the minerals of which rocks are 
made up, and their chemical composition ; but 
it was found impossible to render these matters 
sufficiently simple. 

So again with regard to the geological 
structure of mountain-chains. This had to be 



x Preface. 

very briefly treated, in order to avoid intro- 
ducing details which would be too complicated 
for a book of this kind. 

The author desires to acknowledge his obliga- 
tions to the writings of Sir A. Geikie ; Professor 
Bonney, Professor Green, and Professor Shaler, 
of Harvard University ; the volumes of the 
" Alpine Journal ; " " The Earth," by Reel us ; 
the u Encyclopaedia Britannica." Canon Isaac 
Taylor's " Words and Places," have also been 
made use of ; and if in every case the reference 
is not given, the writer hopes the omission will 
be pardoned. A few passages from Mr. Ruskin's 
"Modern Painters" have been quoted, in the 
hope that others may be led to read that 
wonderful book, and to learn more about moun- 
tains and clouds, and many other things, at the 
feet of one of the greatest teachers of the 
century. 

Some of our engraving's are taken from the 
justly celebrated photographs of the High Alps, 1 
by the late Mr. W. Donkin, whose premature 
death among the Caucasus Mountains was 

1 Published by Messrs. Spooner, of the Strand. 



Preface. 



XI 



deeply deplored by all. Those reproduced were 
kindly lent by his brother, Mr. A. E. Donkin, 
of Rugby. To Messrs. Valentine & Son of 
Dundee, Mr. Wilson of Aberdeen, and to 
Messrs. Frith we are indebted for permission 
to reproduce some of their admirable photo- 
graphs ; also to Messrs. James How & Sons of 
Farringdon Street, for three excellent photo- 
graphs of rock-sections taken with the micro- 
scope. 



CONTENTS. 



part I. 

THE MOUNTAINS AS THEY ARE. 

CHAPTER 

I. Mountains and Men 

II. The Uses of Mountains 

III. Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains 

IV. Mountain Plants and Animals . . . 



PAGE 

3 
33 

70 
103 



part ii. 

HOW THE MOUNTAINS WERE MADE. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

V. How the Materials were brought to- 
gether 139 

VI. How the Mountains were upheaved . . 174 

VII. How the Mountains were carved out . 205 

VIII. Volcanic Mountains 242 

IX. Mountain Architecture 282 

X. The Ages of Mountains and Other Ques- 
tions 318 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Norham Castle. After Turner Frontispiece 

Ben Lomond. From a Photograph by J. Valentine ... 16 

Clouds on Ben Nevis 38 

Snow on the High Alps. From a Photograph by 

Mr. Donkin 64 

A Storm on the Lake of Thun. After Turner ... 86 

The Matteriiorn. From a Photograph by Mr. Donkin . 98 

On a Glacier 116 

Bed Deer. After Ansdell 133 

Chalk Bocks, Flamborough Head. From a Photograph 

by G. W. Wilson 152 

Microphotographs illustrating Bock Formation . . 172 
The Skaeggedalsfors, Norway. From a Photograph by 

J. Valentine 192 

The Mer de Glace and Mont Buet. From a Photograph 

by Mr. Donkin 229 

The Eruption of Vesuvius in 1872 From an Instantane- 
ous Photograph 250 

Columnar Basalt at Clamshell Cave, Staffa. From 

a Photograph by J. Valentine 280 

Mont Blanc, Snowfields, Glaciers, and Streams . . 312 

Mountain in the Yosemite Valley 336 



PART I. 



THE MOUNTAINS AS THEY ARE. 



THE STOEY OF THE HILLS. 



iPatrt I. 

THE MOUNTAINS AS THEY ARE. 



CHAPTER I. 

MOUNTAINS AND MEN. 

" Happy, I said, whose home is here ; 
Fair fortunes to the Mountaineer." 

In old times people looked with awe upon 
the mountains, and regarded them with feel- 
ings akin to horror or dread. A very slight 
acquaintance with the classical writers of an- 
tiquity will suffice to convince any one that 
Greeks and Romans did so regard them. They 
were not so familiar with mountains as we 
are ; for there were no roads through them, 
as now through the Alps, or the Highlands of 
Scotland, — to say nothing of the all-pervading 
railway. It would, however, be a great mis- 



4 The Story of the Hills. 

take to suppose that the ancients did not ob- 
serve and enjoy the beauties of Nature. The 
fair and fertile plain, the vine-clad slopes of 
the lower hill-ranges, and the " many-twinkling 
smile of ocean " were seen and loved by all 
who had a mind to appreciate the beautiful. 
The poems of Homer and Virgil would alone 
be sufficient to prove this. But the higher 
ranges, untrodden by the foot of man, were 
gazed at, not with admiration, but with reli- 
gious awe; for men looked upon mountains 
as the abode of the gods. They dwelt in the 
rich plain, which they cultivated, and beside 
the sweet waters of some river; for food and 
drink are the first necessities of life. But the} 7 
left the high hills alone, and in fancy peopled 
them with the "Immortals" who ruled their 
destiny, — controlling also the winds and the 
lightning, the rain and the clouds, which seem 
to have their home among the mountains. A 
childlike fear of the unknown, coupled with 
religious awe, made them avoid the lofty and 
barren hills, from which little was to be got 
but wild honey and a scanty supply of game. 
There were also dangers to be encountered 
from the fun 7 of the storm and the avalanche; 



Mountains and Men. 5 

but the safer ground of the plains below would 
reward their toil with an ample supply of corn 
and other necessaries of life. 

In classical times, and also in the Middle 
Ages, the mountains, as well as glens and 
rivers, were supposed to be peopled with fairies, 
nymphs, elves, and all sorts of strange beings ; 
and even now travellers among the mountains 
of Switzerland, Norway, Wales, or Scotland 
find that it is not long since the simple folk 
of these regions believed in the existence of 
such beings, and attributed to their agency 
many things which they could not otherwise 
explain. 

Of all the nations of antiquity the Jews seem 
to have shown the greatest appreciation of moun- 
tain scenery ; and in no ancient writings do 
we find so many or so eloquent allusions to 
the hills as in the Old Testament. But here 
again one cannot fail to trace the same feelings 
of religious awe. The Law was given to their 
forefathers in the desert amidst the thunders 
of Sinai. To them the earth was literally 
Jehovah's footstool, and the clouds were His 
tabernacle. " If He do but touch the hills, 
they shall smoke." 



6 The Story of the Hills. 

But this awe was not unmixed with other 
and more comforting thoughts. They felt that 
those cloud-capped towers were symbols of 
strength and the abode of Him who would 
help them in their need. For so we find the 
psalmists regarding them ; and with our very 
different conceptions of the earth's natural fea- 
tures, we can but dimly perceive and realise the 
full force and meaning of the words, " I will lift 
up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh 
my help." 

To take another example from antiquity, we 
find that the Himalayas and the source of the 
Ganges have from very early times been con- 
sidered as holy by the people of India. Thou- 
sands of pilgrims from all parts of that vast 
country still continue to seek salvation in the 
holy waters of the Ganges, and at its sacred 
sources in the snowy Himalayas. And to those 
who know India the wondrous snow-clad peaks 
of the Himalayas still seem to be surrounded 
with somewhat of the same halo of glory as 
of old. 

Mountains are intimately associated with the 
history of nations, and have contributed much 
to the moulding of the human mind and the 



Mountains and Men. 7 

character of those who dwell among them ; 
they have alike inspired the mind of the artist, 
the poet, the reformer, and the visionary seek- 
ing repose for his soul, that, dwelling far from 
the strife and turmoil of the world, he may 
contemplate alone the glory of the Eternal 
Being. They have been the refuge of the 
afflicted and the persecuted ; they have braced 
the minds and bodies of heroes who have dwelt 
for a time among them before descending once 
more to the plain that they might play some 
noble part in the progress of the world. 

Moses, while leading the flock of his father- 
in-law to the back of the wilderness, came to 
Mount Horeb and received the divine summons 
to return to Egypt and lead Israel out of bon- 
dage. David, with his six hundred followers, 
fleeing from the face of Saul, found a refuge 
in the hill country ; and the life of peril and 
adventure which he led during these years of 
persecution was a part of his training for the 
great future task of ruling Israel, which he 
performed so well. Elijah summoned the false 
prophets of Baal and Asherah to Mount Carmel 
and slew them at the brook Kishon ; and a 
little later we find him at Mount Horeb listen- 



8 The Story of the Hills. 

ing, not to the wind or to the earthquake or to 
the fire, but to the " still small voice " telling 
him to return and anoint Jehu to be king. 

Or, to take another example from a later 
age, we find that Mahomet's favourite resort 
was a cave at the foot of Mount Hira, 
north of Mecca ; here in dark and wild sur- 
roundings his mind was wrought up to rhap- 
sodic enthusiasm. 

And many, like these leaders of men, have 
received in mountain retreats a firmness and 
tenacity, of purpose giving them the right to 
be leaders, and the power to redress human 
wrongs ; or, it may be, a temper of mind and 
spirit enabling them to soar into regions of 
thought and contemplation untrodden by the 
careless and more luxurious multitudes who 
dwell on the plains below. Perhaps Mr. Lewis 
Morris was unconsciously offering his testimony 
to the influence of mountains when he wrote 
those words which he puts into the mouth 
of poor Marsyas, — 

" More it is than ease, 
Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries, 
To have seen white presences upon the hills, 
To have heard the voices of the eternal gods." x 

1 Epic of Hades. 



Mountains and Men. 9 

The thunder and lightning, storm and cloud, 
as well as the soft beauty of colour, and the 
harmony of mountain outline, have been a 
part, and a very important part, of their train- 
ing. The exhilarating air, the struggle with 
the elements in their fierceness, the rugged 
strength of granite, seem to have possessed 
the very souls of such men, and made them 
like "the strong ones," — the immortal beings 
to whom in all previous ages the races of man- 
kind have assigned their abode in the hills, 
as the Greek gods were supposed to dwell on 
Mount Olympus. On these heights such men 
seem to have gained something of the strength 
of Him who dwells in the heavens far above 
their highest peaks, — " the strength of the 
hills," which, as the Hebrew poet says, "is 
His also." 

We have spoken of the attitude of the human 
mind towards mountains in the past ; let us 
now consider the light in which they are re- 
garded at the present time by all thoughtful 
and cultivated people. And it does not require 
a moment's consideration to perceive that a 
very great change has taken place. Instead 
of regarding them with horror or aversion, we 



10 The Story of the Hills. 

look upon them with wonder and delight ; we 
watch them hour by hour whenever for a brief 
season of holiday we take up our abode near 
or among them. We come back to them year 
by year to breathe once more the pure air which 
so frequently restores the invalid to health and 
brings back the colour to faded cheeks. We 
love to watch the ever-varying lights and 
shades upon them, as the day goes by. But 
it is towards evening that the most enchanting 
scenes are to be witnessed, when the sinking 
sun sheds its golden rays upon their slopes, or 
tinges their summits with floods of crimson 
light ; and then presently, after the sun has 
gone clown, pale mists begin to rise, and the 
hills seem more majestic than ever. Later on, 
as the full moon appears from behind a bank 
of cloud, those wonderful moonlight effects may 
be seen which must be familiar to all who know 
the mountains as they are in summer or autumn, 
— scenes such as the writer has frequently 
witnessed in the Highlands of Scotland, but 
which only the poet can adequately describe. 

There are few sights in Nature which more 
powerfully impress the mind than a sunset 
among the mountains. General Sir Richard 



Mountains and Men. 11 

Strachey concludes his description of the 
Himalayas with the following striking passage : 

" Here may the eye, as it sweeps along the horizon, 
embrace a line of snowclad mountains such as exist 
in no other part of the world, stretching over one 
third of the entire circle, at a distance of forty or 
fifty miles, their peaks towering over a sea of inter- 
vening ranges piled one behind another, whose extent 
on either hand is lost in the remote distance, and 
of which the nearest rises from a gulf far down be- 
neath the spectator's feet, where may be seen the 
silver line that marks a river's course, or crimson 
fields of amaranth and the dwellings of man. Sole 
representative of animal life, some great eagle floats 
high overhead in the pure dark-blue sky, or, unused 
to man, fearlessly sweeps down within a few yards 
to gaze at the stranger who intrudes among these 
solitudes of Nature. As the sun sinks, the cold grey 
shadow of the summit where we stand is thrown 
forward, slowly stealing over the distant hills, and 
veiling their glowing purples as it goes, carries the 
night up to the feet of the great snowy peaks, which 
still rise radiant in the rosy light above the now 
darkening world. From east to west in succession 
the splendour fades away from one point after another, 
and the vast shadow of the earth is rapidly drawn 
across the whole vault of heaven. One more de- 
parting day is added to the countless series which 



12 The Story of the Hills. 

has silently witnessed the deathlike change that 
passes over the eternal snows, as they are left raising 
their cold pale fronts against the now leaden sky ; 
till slowly with the deepening night the world of 
mountains rises again, as it were, to a new life, under 
the changed light of the thousand stars which stud 
the firmament and shine with a brilliancy unknown 
except in the clear rarefied air of these sublime 
heights." 

Year by year a larger number of busy 
workers from our great towns, availing them- 
selves of the increased facilities for travel, come 
to the mountains to spend their summer holi- 
days, — some to the Swiss Alps, others to Wales, 
Cumberland, Norway, or the Highlands of Scot- 
land. There are few untrodden valleys in 
these regions, few of the more important moun- 
tains which have not been climbed. 

Our knowledge of mountains, thanks to the 
labours of a zealous army of workers, is now con- 
siderable. The professors of physical science 
have been busy making important observations 
on the condition of the atmosphere in the higher 
regions ; geographers have noted their heights 
and mapped their leading contours. Geologists 
have done a vast amount of work in ascertain- 



Mountains and Men. 13 

ing the composition and arrangement of the 
rocks of which mountain chains are composed, 
in observing their peculiar structures, in re- 
cording the changes which are continually 
effecting their waste and decay, and thus in- 
terpreting the story of the hills as it is written 
in the very rocks of which they are built up. 

Naturalists have collected and noted the 
peculiar plants and animals which have their 
home among the hills, and so the forms of life, 
both animal and vegetable, which inhabit the 
mountains of Europe, and some other countries, 
are now fairly well known. 

The historian, the antiquary, and the student 
of languages have made interesting discoveries 
with regard to the mountain races of mankind. 
And only to mention this country, such writers 
as Scott, Wordsworth, and Ruskin have given 
us in verse and prose descriptions of mountain 
scenery which will take a permanent place in 
literature ; while Turner, our great landscape- 
painter, has expressed the glories of mountain 
scenery in pictures which speak more eloquently 
than many words. Thus we see that whatever 
line of inquiry be chosen, our subject is full 
of varied interest. 



14 The Story of the Hills. 

With regard to the characteristics of moun- 
tain races, it is not easy to say to what extent 
people in different parts of the world who live 
among mountains share the same virtues or the 
same failings ; but the most obvious traits in 
the character of the mountaineer seem to be the 
result of his natural surroundings. Thus we 
find mountaineers generally endowed with har- 
dihood, strength, and bravery. To spend one's 
days on the hillsides for a large part of the 
year, as shepherds and others do in Scotland or 
Wales, and to walk some miles every day in 
pure bracing air, must be healthy and tend to 
develop the muscles of the body ; and so we find 
the highlanders of all countries are usually mus- 
cular, strong, and capable of endurance. i\.nd 
there can be little doubt that mountain races 
are kept up to a high standard of strength and 
endurance by a rigorous and constant weeding 
out of the weakly ones, especially among chil- 
dren. And if only the stronger live to grow up 
and become parents, the chances are that their 
children will be strong too. Thus Nature exer- 
cises a kind of "selection ; " and we have conse- 
quently " the survival of the fittest." This 
"selection," together with the healthy lives 



Mountains and Men. 15 

they lead, is probably sufficient to account for 
their strength and hardiness. 

As might be expected, mountaineers are cele- 
brated for their fighting qualities. The fierce 
Afghans who have often faced a British army, 
and sometimes victoriously ; the brave Swiss 
peasantry, who have more than once fought 
nobly for freedom ; the Highlanders, who have 
contributed so largely to the success of British 
arras in nearly all parts of the world, and whose 
forefathers defied even the all-conquering Roman 
in their mountain strongholds, — these and many 
others all show the same valour and power of 
endurance. Etymologists, whose learned re- 
searches into the meaning of words have thrown 
so much light on the ages before history was 
written, tell us that the Picts were so called 
from their fighting qualities, and that the word 
" Pict " is derived from the Gaelic " peicta," a 
fighting man. And Julius Caesar says the chief 
god of the Britons was the god of war. 

In some countries — as, for instance, Greece, 
Italy, and Spain — the mountains are infested 
with banditti and robbers, who often become 
a terror to the neighbourhood. In more peace- 
ful and orderly countries, however, we find 



16 The Story of the Hills. 

among mountaineers many noble qualities, — 
such as patience, honesty, simplicity of life, 
thrift, a dignified self-reliance, together with 
true courtesy and hospitality. This is high 
praise ; but who that knows mountain peasants 
would say it is undeserved ? How many a tired 
traveller among the hills of Scotland or Wales 
has had reason to be grateful for welcome, food, 
and rest in some little cottage in a far-away 
glen ! How many friendships have thus been 
formed ! How many a pleasant talk has be- 
guiled the time during a storm or shower! The 
old feuds are forgotten now that the Saxon 
stranger and invader is at peace with the Celtic 
people whom his forefathers drove into the hills. 
The castles, once centres of oppression or scenes 
of violence, lie in peaceful and picturesque ruins, 
and add not a little to the interest of one's 
travels in the North. What true courtesy and 
consideration one meets with at the hands of 
these honest folk, among whom the old kindly 
usages have not died out ! Often too poor to 
be afflicted with the greed and thirst for wealth, 
which frequently marks the man of the plain 
as compared with the man of the hills, — the 
Lowlander as compared with the Highlander, — 



Mountains and Men. 17 

they exhibit many of those simple virtues which 
one hardly expects to meet with among busy- 
townspeople, all bent on making money, or as 
the phrase is, " getting on in life." 

" The mountain cheer, the frosty skies, 
Breed purer wits, inventive eyes ; 
And then the moral of the place 
Hints summits of heroic grace. 
Men in these crags a fastness find 
To fight corruption of the mind ; 
The insanity of towns to stem 
With simpleness for stratagem." 

Mr. Skene, the Scotch historian, records a 
touching case of the devotion of Highlanders 
to their chief. He says, — 

" There is perhaps no instance in which the attach- 
ment of the clan to their chief was so strongly mani- 
fested as in the case of the Macphersons of Cluny 
after the disaster of ' the Forty-five.' The chief 
having been deeply engaged in that insurrection, 
his life became of course forfeited to the laws ; but 
neither the hope of reward nor the fear of danger 
could induce any one of his people to betray him. For 
nine years he lived concealed in a cave a short dis- 
tance from his own house ; it was situated in the front 
of a woody precipice of which the trees and shelving 
rocks concealed the entrance. The cave had been 
dug by his own people, who worked at night and 



18 The Story of the Hills. 

conveyed the stones and rubbish into a neighbour- 
ing lake, in order that no vestige of their labour 
might appear and lead to the discovery of the retreat. 
In this asylum he continued to live secure, receiving 
by night the occasional visits of his friends, and some- 
times by day, when the soldiers had begun to slacken 
the vigour of their pursuit. Upwards of one thou- 
sand persons were privy to his concealment, and a 
reward of £1,000 was offered to any one who should 
give information against him. . . . But although the 
soldiers were animated by the hope of reward, and 
their officers by promise of promotion for the appre- 
hension of this proscribed individual, yet so true 
were his people, so inflexibly strict in their promise 
of secrecy, and so dextrous in conveying to him the 
necessaries he required in his long confinement, not 
a trace of him could be discovered, nor an individual 
base enough to give a hint to his detriment." 

The mountaineer is a true gentleman. How- 
ever poor, however ignorant or superstitious, 
one perceives in him a refinement of manner 
which cannot fail to command admiration. His 
readiness to share his best with the stranger 
and to render any service in his power are 
pleasing traits in his character. But there is 
one sad feature about mountaineers of the pre- 
sent day which one frequently notices in dis- 



Mountains and Men. 19 

tricts where many tourists come, — especially 
English or American. They are, we regret 
to say, losing their independence, their simple, 
old-fashioned ways, and becoming servile and 
greedy, — at least in the towns and villages. 
Such changes seem, alas ! inevitable when rich 
townspeople, bent on pleasure or sport, invade 
the recesses of the hills where poverty usually 
reigns. On the one hand, we have people, 
often with long purses, eager for enjoyment, 
waiting to be fed, housed, or otherwise enter- 
tained ; on the other hand, poor people, anxious 
to "make hay while the sun shines" and to 
extract as much money as possible from " the 
visitors," who often allow themselves to be 
unmercifully fleeced. Then there are in the 
Highlands the sportsmen, who require a large 
following of u gillies " to attend them in their 
wanderings, pay them highly for their services, 
and dismiss them at the end of the season ; and 
so the men are in many cases left without em- 
ployment all the winter and spring. Is it, then, 
surprising that they give way to a natural 
tendency to idleness, and fall into other bad 
habits ? Any visitor who spends a winter, or 
part of one, in the Highlands will be better able 



20 The Story of the Hills. 

to realise the extent of this evil, which is by no 
means small ; and one cannot help regretting 
that the sportsmen's pleasure and the tourist's 
holiday should involve results of such grave 
consequence. We are inclined to think that in 
these days sport is overdone, and wish it could 
be followed without taking the hillman away 
from the work he would otherwise find, and 
which would render him a more useful mem- 
ber of society. With the agitation going on 
in some parts against deer-forests we do not 
feel much sympathy, because they are based on 
the erroneous idea that " crofters " could make 
a living out of the land thus enclosed ; whereas 
those who know the land and its value for agri- 
cultural purposes tell us that with the exception 
of a few small patches here and there, hardly 
worth mentioning, it could not possibly be made 
to produce enough to maintain crofters and their 
families. Nevertheless, another way of looking 
at the matter is this : that the man who merely 
ministers to the pleasure of others richer than 
himself loses some of the self-respect and inde- 
pendence which he would acquire by working in 
his own way for a living. 

The same changes for the worse are still more 



Mountains and Men. 21 

manifest in Switzerland ; and even in some parts 
of Norway the people are being similarly spoiled. 
Mr. Ruskin, speaking of the former country, says : 

" I believe that every franc now spent by travellers 
among the Alps tends more or less to the undermin- 
ing of whatever special greatness there is in the Swiss 
character ; and the persons I met in Switzerland whose 
position and modes of life render them best able to 
give me true information respecting the present state 
of their country, among many causes of national de- 
terioration, spoke with chief fear of the influx of Eng- 
lish wealth, gradually connecting all industry with the 
wants of strangers, and inviting all idleness to depend 
upon their casual help, thus resolving the ancient con- 
sistency and pastoral simplicity of the mountain life 
into the two irregular trades of the innkeeper and 
mendicant." 1 

Mountain people have still their superstitions ; 
since the introduction of railways many of the 
old legends and popular myths have died out, 
but even what is left is interesting to the 
student of folk-lore, — indeed, we might say, 
to every one. 

Sir A. Geikie, speaking of Scotch mountain 
scenery says, — 

1 Modern Painters, vol. iv. 



22 The Story of the Hills. 

" To the influence of scenery of this kind on the 
mind of a people at once observant and imaginative, 
such legends as that of the Titans should in all likeli- 
hood be ascribed. It would be interesting to trace 
back these legends to their cradle, and to mark how 
much they owe to the character of the scenery amongst 
which they took their rise. Perhaps it would be found 
that the rugged outlines of the Boeotian hills had no 
small share in the framing of Hesiod's graphic story 
of that primeval warfare wherein the combatants 
fought with huge rocks, which, darkening the air as 
they flew, at last buried the discomfited Titans deep 
beneath the surface of the land. Nor would it be dif- 
ficult to trace a close connection between the present 
scenery of our own country and some of the time- 
honoured traditionary stories of giants and hero 
kings, warlocks and witches, or between the doings 
of the Scandinavian Hrimthursar, or Frost Giants, 
and the more characteristic features of the land- 
scapes and climate of the North." 1 

The following passage from Ruskin brings 
out more strongly the effects of mountains on 
men, — a subject to which he has given much 
attention : — 

" We shall find, on the one hand, the mountains of 
Greece and Italy, forming all the loveliest dreams, 

1 Scenery of Scotland. 



Mountains ajzd Men. 23 

first of Pagan, then of Christian mythology, on the 
other, those of Scandinavia, to be the first sources of 
whatever mental (as well as military) power was 
brought by the Normans into Southern Europe. 
Normandy itself is, to all intents and purposes, 
a hill country. . . . We have thus one branch of 
the Northern religious imagination rising among the 
Scandinavian fiords, tempered in France by various 
encounters with elements of Arabian, Italian, Pro- * 
venial, or other Southern poetry, and then reacting 
upon Southern England ; while other forms of the 
same rude religious imagination, resting like clouds 
upon the mountains of Scotland and Wales, met and 
mingled with the Norman Christianity, retaining even 
to the latest times some dark colour of superstition, 
but giving all its poetical and military pathos to Scot- 
tish poetry, and a peculiar sternness • and wildness 
of tone to the Reformed faith, in its manifestations 
among the Scottish hills." 1 

The Alps, like most other mountainous coun- 
tries, have their fair share of legends, some of 
which are very grotesque. We have selected 
the following, as related by Professor Bonney. 2 

The wild huntsman's yell is still heard in 

1 Modern Painters, vol. iv. 

2 " The Alpine Regions of Switzerland " (Deighton, Bell, & 
Co.), a most interesting book, especially for travellers. 



24 The Story of the Hills. 

many places by the shuddering peasants as 
his phantom train sweeps by the chalet. 
There is also the wild goat-herd, a wicked lad, 
who crucified an old he-goat and drove his 
flock to worship it ; lightning consumed him ; 
and now he wanders forever over the Alps, 
miserably wailing. 

When the glacier of Getroz burst, the Arch- 
fiend himself was seen swimming down the 
Rhone, with a drawn sword in one hand and 
a golden ball in the other ; when opposite to 
Martigny he halted, and at his bidding the 
waters rose and swept away part of the town. 
A vast multitude of imps was seen about the 
same time on a mountain in the Val de Bagnes 
by two mendicant friars from Sion, who, hearing 
of this unlawful assembly, had gone out as 
detectives to learn what mischief was hatching. 

Many places also have their spectral animals, 
the Valois, according to Tschudi, being the 
headquarters of these legends. There are also 
pygmies to be seen in the lonely mountains, like 
the Norwegian trolls, and brownies who make 
or mar the house, according as the goodwife is 
neat or a slattern. 

Many Alpine stories have reference to the 



Mountains and Men. 25 

sudden destruction of pastures by the fall of 
rocks or ice. Here is one from the Clariden 
Alps : — 

Once upon a time these were fertile pastures, 
on which dwelt a "senn." He grew rich, so 
that none could match him in wealth ; but at 
the same time he grew proud and haughty, and 
spurned both the laws of Nature and the com- 
mandments of God. He was so foolishly fond 
of his mistress that he paved the way from the 
chalet to the byre with cheeses, lest she should 
soil her feet, and cared so little for his mother 
that when she la}" at his door fainting with 
hunger, he offered her only milk to drink in 
which he had thrown the foulest refuse. Right- 
eously indignant, she turned away, calling upon 
Heaven to punish such an insult. Before she 
reached her home, the rocks and ice had de- 
scended, crushing beneath them her wicked son, 
his mistress, and possessions. 

In the neighbourhood of Monte Rosa there is 
a tradition that a valley exists in the heart of 
that mountain the entrance to which has been 
sealed up by impassable glaciers, though the 
floor of the " cirque " within is still a rich pas- 
turage. In a certain valley they point out a 



26 The Story of the Hills. 

spring which bursts from the ground, as the out- 
let of the torrent by which it is watered. Once, 
said, they, a chasseur found the bed of this 
stream dry, and creeping up its subterranean 
channel, arrived on the floor of the valley. It 
was a huntsman's paradise ; chamois were there 
in plenty, bears also, and even bouquetins, wan- 
dering over the richest pastures. He retraced 
his steps to announce the good news ; but when 
he returned again, the waters had resumed their 
course, and the place has ever since remained 
inaccessible. 

Mountains play a very important part in 
human history. In the first place, they are 
natural barriers separating the nations of the 
world from one another, and tending to keep 
them confined within certain definite bounds ; 
we say, tending to keep them thus confined, be- 
cause, as every one knows, these barriers have 
again and again been surmounted by conquer- 
ing armies. The rugged Alps could not ward 
off Hannibal, who made his way through them 
to march upon the capital of the Roman empire. 
In like manner Napoleon defied this great natu- 
ral rampart, made a road through it, and came 



Mountains and Men. 27 

to Italy. No mountains would seem to be quite 
impassable ; but although liable in the course of 
ages to be occasionally overrun, they afford good 
protection and produce a feeling of security. 

The Himalayas separate our great Indian 
empire from that of China ; and we do not at 
present apprehend an invasion from that quar- 
ter. The Suliman Mountains divide us from 
the Afghans, and the great Russian and Persian 
empires farther west. Still, we know that in 
the eleventh century a great Mahometan inva- 
sion of India took place ; our own armies have 
more than once penetrated to Kabul. Perhaps 
the common garden wall separating adjacent 
suburban residences furnishes a suitable illus- 
tration of* the great natural walls which divide, 
not households or families, but much larger fami- 
lies than these, — the nations of the world. 

Just as unruly boys sometimes climb over the 
neighbour's wall and play games in a garden 
which is not their own ; or as burglars may sur- 
mount these obstacles to their progress, and 
finding a way into the house by a back door or 
kitchen window, commence their ravages, — so a 
neighbouring (but not neighbourly) nation, bent 
on conquest, may invade some natural garden 



28 The Story of the Hills. 

of the world, such as India, by forcing their 
way through physical barriers which for ordi- 
nary purposes serve to protect those within. 

The Thian Shan Mountains divide Russia 
from China's sphere of influence. The Caucasus 
Mountains separate Russia from Asia Minor. 
Austro-Hungary is bounded by the Carpathians, 
Spain by the Pyrenees. The Alps of Switzer- 
land separate four nations not very friendly to 
each other ; and lastly, in our own country the 
Cheviot Hills, together with the Tweed, form the 
boundary between Scotland and England. 

Where there are no mountains or hills, rivers 
sometimes serve as boundaries, but of course 
they do not answer the purpose so well. Some- 
times a nation actually builds a wall for a boun- 
dary. Of this the great wall of China and the 
Roman wall between the Cheviots and the Sol- 
way Firth are familiar examples. 

In the second place, mountains have always 
been a refuge and shelter for conquered races ; 
and the primitive tribes who once lived in 
the plains have been forced by adverse circum- 
stances to take to the hills. This has taken 
place over and over again. 

We know that the Celtic people now living 



Mountains and Men. 29 

in Brittany, Devonshire, Cornwall } Wales, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, though now considerably 
mixed, are the descendants of the old Celtic in- 
habitants of France and Britain. But there is 
a great deal of unwritten history for which we 
may look in vain to the ordinary sources of in- 
formation, such as books, and which is only to be 
read in quite different records, — in antiquities 
buried up in peat-beds, in bogs, in ruins and an- 
cient forts, or camps ; and last but not least, in 
the names of places, rivers, or mountains. The 
hills, the valleys, the rivers, are the only writing- 
tablets on which unlettered nations have been 
able to inscribe their annals. For this kind of 
history we must go to the antiquary, and, above 
all, to the philologist, who tells us the meaning 
of the names of places, and who the people were 
who gave the names that we see on our maps. 
The great advances which have of late years 
been made in our knowledge of the primeval 
races of men, or at least of nations but little 
known in the annals of history, are largely due 
to the interpretation of the obscure records pre- 
served in local names. The Celtic, the Iberian, 
the Teutonic, the Scandinavian, and Sclavonic 
races have thus for the most part made known 



30 The Story of the Hills. 

to us their migrations, conquests, and defeats. 
And so by studying the names of places, rivers, 
and hills, as well as by careful collection of 
works of art, implements, coins, such as may be 
seen in many a museum, it has been possible to 
read a great deal of early history which would 
otherwise have been lost. 

Those who have studied these matters say 
they can trace wave after wave of population 
which has thus left its mark, — Gaelic, Cymric 
(or Welsh), Saxon, Anglian, Norwegian, Danish, 
Norman, and Flemish. Thus it can be proved 
from the names on the map that almost the 
whole of England was once Celtic, whereas now 
the Celts are almost entirely confined to the 
hills. The Peak of Derbyshire and the moun- 
tains of Cumberland retain a greater number of 
Celtic names than the districts surrounding 
them ; and the hills of Devonshire long served 
as a barrier to protect the Celts of Cornwall 
from Anglo-Saxon conquerors. 

But even mountain races are often a good 
deal mixed, and in the Pyrenees we find the de- 
scendants of the Iberians, who, a very long time 
ago, were driven from the lowlands of France 
and Spain. These Iberians are a very inter- 



Mountains and Men. 31 

esting race, of short stature, with long heads, 
and dark hair and eyes. This old type is to 
be met with in Wales and the Highlands even 
in the present day. And so we learn — if these 
conclusions are sound — that even the Celts 
in their early days were invaders, and drove 
before them an older population. This race, it 
seems, lived in Europe a very long time ago, be- 
fore the discovery of metals, when people made 
axes, hammers, and spear-heads out of flints or 
other stones ; and so they are said to belong to 
" the Stone Age." Their remains are found in 
many of the caves which of late years have 
been explored. Possibly the ancient people of 
Switzerland who lived in wooden houses, erected 
on piles near the shores of lakes (probably for 
safety), were also of the same stock. 

It is curious to find how people living in sep- 
arate valleys among the mountains of Switzer- 
land have, in the course of time, become so 
much unlike their neighbours that they can 
hardly understand each other's speech, so effec- 
tually have the mountains kept them apart. In 
some districts almost every valley has its sep- 
arate dialect. Switzerland is only twice the 
size of Wales, yet the local names are derived 



32 The Story of the Hills. 

from half a dozen different languages, three or 
four of which are still spoken by the people. In 
the Alps, too, the same mixture of Celtic with 
an older Iberian stock has been detected. 

A curious reversal of the usual order of things 
is noticed by the late Dean Stanley in his 
" Sinai and Palestine." He points out that the 
Jews took possession of many of the hills of 
Palestine soon after the invasion under Joshua, 
but could not drive out the peoples of the plains, 
because they were better armed, and had chari- 
ots of iron in great number. The conquerors in 
this case kept to the hills ; while the Canaanites, 
Philistines, and other inhabitants of the country 
retained for a long time their hold of the lower 
ground. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE USES OF MOUNTAINS. 



The valleys only feed ; the mountains feed and guard and 
strengthen us. — Ruskin. 



It is not an exaggeration to say that there are 
no physical features of the surface of the earth 
which render such a variety of services as moun- 
tains. The operations which they perform in- 
volve such far-reaching consequences that it is 
difficult to say where their effects cease. Indeed, 
it might almost be maintained that they are the 
mainspring of the world, — as far as its surface 
is concerned, — for it would fare ill with man- 
kind if they were removed or in some way 
destroyed. Things would then very soon come to 
a standstill. The soil would become exhausted ; 
streams would cease to flow ; and the world would 
become a kind of stagnant pool. 

The three main services of the hills are 
these : — 

8 



34 The Story of the Hills. 

I. Mountains help to condense water-vapour from 
the atmosphere, thus bringing back to the earth 
moisture which it loses continually by evaporation. 

II. Mountains are elevated reservoirs of water in 
one form or another, and thus not only feed the 
streams and rivers, but give them force and direction 
as well. 

III. Mountains suffer themselves to be slowly worn 
away in order that the face of the earth may be re- 
newed; in other words, they die that we, and all 
created things, may live. 

I. Mountains help to condense water-vapour 
from the atmosphere, thus bringing back to the earth 
the moisture which it loses continually by evapora- 
tion. Every one knows that there is abundance 
of water-vapour in the atmosphere, but the 
question arises, How does it get there ? The 
answer to this lies in the simple fact that every 
surface of water exposed to the air undergoes 
loss by evaporation. If you wish to satisfy your- 
self on this point, place a saucer of water in your 
room, and in a few days it will all be gone. We 
hang clothes out to dry, and so avail ourselves of 
this curious power that air has of taking up 
water in the form of vapour. Steam, or water- 
vapour, is really invisible, though we frequently 



The Uses of Mountains. 35 

talk of seeing the steam issuing from a locomo- 
tive ; but what we really see is a cloud of 
condensed steam, and such clouds, like those 
that we see floating in the air, are really masses 
of little tiny particles of water which can reflect 
or throw hack the light which falls upon them, 
and thus they become visible. Again, a kettle 
of water, if left too long on the fire will entirely 
boil away. It is all turned into steam, and the 
steam is somehow hidden away in the air, though 
a little of it will be condensed into slight clouds 
by the colder air outside the kettle. 

But how can water stow itself away in the air 
without being seen or felt ? 

An illustration may help to explain this. Sup- 
pose you scatter a spoonful of small .shot over a 
carpet or a dark-coloured table-cloth ; you would 
probably not be able to see them at a little distance. 
Now, gather them together in a heap, and you 
see them at once. The heap of shot in some 
ways resembles a drop of water, for in a drop of 
water the tiny particles (or molecules) of which 
it is composed are close together ; but by heating 

1 It has lately been proved that clouds can only form in air 
which contains dust, and that each little suspended particle of 
water contains a speck of dust or a tiny germ of some sort for 
its nucleus. 



36 The Story of the Hills. 

water you cause them to fly asunder and scatter 
themselves in various directions. They are lost 
to sight, and moreover have no power of attract- 
ing each other or of acting in concert ; each one 
then takes its own course, whereas in the drop of 
water they were in some wonderful way bound 
together by mutual attraction. They dance in 
groups ; but the rude force of heat will scatter 
these little dancing groups, and break them up 
into that state which we call a state of vapour. 

The forces of heat and cohesion are directly at 
variance ; and it is just a question of degree 
whether the one or the other gets the mastery in 
this " tug of war." The more you heat the 
water, the faster the little groups of molecules 
break up and disappear in the air. They 
must in some way go moving between the 
particles of air, and collisions keep taking place 
with inconceivable rapidity. 

And now another question arises ; namely, 
how much water-vapour can the air take ? That 
depends chiefly on its temperature. Air when 
heated will take up a great deal of steam ; and 
the more you heat air, the more it can take up. 
When air at a given temperature can take up 
no more, it is said to be saturated for that tern- 



The Uses of Mountains. 37 

perature ; but if the temperature be raised, it 
will immediately begin to take up more. For 
each degree of temperature there is a certain 
amount of water-vapour which can be absorbed, 
and no more. But suppose we take some air 
which is already saturated and lower its tem- 
perature by giving it a sudden chill, what will 
happen? It will immediately give up part of 
its steam, or water-vapour ; namely, the exact 
amount which it is unable to contain at the 
lower temperature. 1 

There are various ways in which you can test 
this matter for yourself. For instance, take a 
hand-glass, and breathe on it. You know what 
will happen : a film of moisture forms upon it ; 
and you know the reason why. It is simply 
that the cold glass gives a chill to one's breath 
(which being warm is highly charged with 
water- vapour from the lungs), and so some of 
the vapour is at once condensed. Now, this 
serves very well to explain how mountains 
catch water-vapour, and condense it. They 
are, as it were, a cold looking-glass ; and the 
hot breath of the plains, as it strikes their sides, 

1 Pressure also lias an important influence, but was omitted 
above for the sake of simplicity. 



38 The Story of the Hills. 

receiving a sudden chill, throws down part of 
the vapour it contains. On the higher parts of 
mountain-ranges the cold is so great that the 
water assumes the form of snow. 

Mountains, as every one knows, are colder 
than the plains below. No one cares to stay 
very long on a mountain-top, for fear of catch- 
ing cold. It may be worth while to consider 
why they are cold. Perhaps you answer, " Be- 
cause they are so high." That is true, but not a 
complete answer to our question. We must 
look at the matter a little more closely. The 
earth is a warm body surrounded by space in 
which the cold is inconceivably intense ; but 
just as we protect our bodies against cold with 
garments, so the earth is wrapped up in an at- 
mosphere which serves more or less to keep in 
the heat. All warm bodies give out heat as 
luminous bodies give out light ; but the rays of 
heat, unlike those of light, are quite invisible to 
our eyes, so that we are unaware of them. These 
" dark heat-rays," as they are called, do not 
make any impression on the retina, because our 
eyes are not capable of responding to them as 
they do to the ordinary rays of light. But 
there is a delicate little instrument known as 



The Uses of Mountains. 39 

the thermopile, which responds to, and so de- 
tects these invisible rays ; and if our eyes were 
sensitive to such vibrations as these, we should 
see heat-rays (which like light and sound are 
due to vibrations) streaming from every object, 
just as light does from a candle-flame. 

Those parts of the earth which are least 
covered or protected by the atmosphere lose 
heat most rapidly, — in the same way that on 
a frosty day one's fingers become cold unless 
covered up. Now, there is less air over moun- 
tains ; and in those higher regions above the 
peaks what air there is, is more rarefied, and 
therefore less capable of stopping the heat-rays 
coming from the earth. Professor Tyndall has 
shown that, water-vapour in the air has a great 
power of stopping dark heat-rays; and the 
lower regions, which contain more vapour, stop 
or absorb a good deal of heat which would other- 
wise escape into space. 

Look at a map of any continent, and you will 
see the rivers streaming away from the moun- 
tains. All those vast quantities of water come 
from the atmosphere ; and mountains do a large 
share of the work of condensing it from the state 
of vapour to that of water. Take the map of 



40 The Story of the Hills. 

India, and look at the great range of the Hima- 
layas. At their feet is the hot valley of the 
Ganges, which meets that of the Brahmapootra 
River. An immense amount of evaporation takes 
place from these mighty rivers, so that the air 
above them becomes laden with water- vapour. 
Farther south is the tropical Indian Ocean, 
from which the direct rays of the sun draw 
up still vaster quantities of water. And so 
when south winds blow over India, they are full 
of water-vapour ; and presently they strike the 
flanks of the Himalayas, and at once they are 
chilled, and consequently part with a large 
amount of the vapour which they contained. 
This is best illustrated by the case of the south- 
west monsoon wind of the summer season, which 
sets in during the month of April, and continues 
to blow steadily towards the northeast till Octo- 
ber. After leaving the Bay of Bengal, this warm 
wind, laden with vapour, meets ere long with 
the range known as the Khasi Hills, and con- 
sequently throws down a large part of its va- 
pour in the form of rain. The rainfall here in 
the summer season reaches the prodigious total 
of five hundred inches, or about twenty times as 
much as falls in London during a whole year. 



The Uses of Mountains. 41 

After passing over these hills, the monsoon 
wind presently reaches the Himalayas ; and 
another downpour then takes place, until by 
the time it reaches the wide plains of Thibet, 
so much water has been given up that it be- 
comes a very dry wind instead of a moist one. 

It must not be supposed, however, that the 
condensation effected by mountains is entirely 
due to this coldness. They have another simple 
and effective way of compelling the winds to 
give up rain : their sloping sides force the winds 
which strike them to ascend into higher regions, 
— wedging them up as waves run up a sloping 
stony bank on the seashore, — and when the 
winds reach higher regions of the atmosphere 
they must (as explained above) suffer loss of 
heat, or in other words, have their temperature 
lowered. They also expand considerably as 
they rise into regions where the atmospheric 
pressure is less ; and as every gas or vapour 
loses heat in the act of expansion, they undergo 
a further cooling from this cause also. 

We have now learned that the cooling process 
is brought about in three different ways : (1) By 
contact with the cold body of the mountains ; 
(2) By giving out heat into space ; (3) By ex- 



42 The Story of the Hills. 

pansion of the air as it reaches into the higher 
regions of the atmosphere. The " cloud-caps " 
on certain mountains and promontories are to 
be explained by all these causes combined. 

The west coast of Great Britain illustrates 
the same thing on a smaller scale. There the 
warm waters of the Gulf Stream, travelling in 
a northeasterly direction straight away from 
the Gulf of Mexico, strike the west coast of 
Ireland, England, and Scotland ; and as most 
people are aware, the mild climate of Great 
Britain is chiefly due to this fact. If you con- 
trast for a moment the east and west coasts of 
Britain, you will see that the latter is much 
more rocky and mountainous than the east, 
coast. Mountains run clown nearly all our 
western coasts. Now, it is this elevated and 
rocky side of Britain which catches most of the 
rain. Very instructive it is to compare the 
annual rainfall in different parts of Britain. 
On Dartmoor about 86 inches of rain fall every 
year, while in London only about 24 inches 
fall annually ; but then London has no range 
of mountains near, and is far away from the 
west coast. Again, while people m Ambleside 
have to put up with 78 inches of rain, in Nor- 



The Uses of Mountains. 43 

folk they are content with the modest allowance 
of 24 inches or so. At a place called Quoich 
on the west coast of Scotland, about 117 inches 
fall every year. These differences are chiefly 
due to the different contour of the land down 
the west side of Britain, which is mountainous, 
while the east side is flat, and also to the fact 
that while easterly winds, which have come 
over the continent, are dry, our prevailing winds 
are from the west and southwest, and are con- 
sequently heavily laden with vapour from the 
Atlantic Ocean. These winds follow the direc- 
tion of the Gulf Stream, driving it along before 
them ; and in so doing they take up large quan- 
tities of vapour from its surface. When these 
warm winds touch our western coasts, they 
receive a chill, and consequently are no longer 
able to contain all the vapour which they bring 
with them, and so down comes the rain. 

II. Mountains are elevated reservoirs of water 
in one form or another, and thus not only feed 
the streams and rivers, but give them force and 
direction as well. It is very important that the 
mountains should not allow the waters they 
collect to run away too fast. Try to think for 



44 The Story of the Hills. 

a moment what would happen if instead of 
being, as it were, locked up in the form of snow- 
fields and glaciers, the water were all in the 
liquid form. It would soon run away, and for 
months together the great river-valleys would 
be dry and desolate. When the rain came, there 
would be tremendous floods; dire destruction 
would be wrought in the valleys ; and very soon 
the great rivers would dwindle down to nothing. 
Vegetation too would surfer seriously for want 
of water during the summer months ; and the 
valleys generally would cease to be the fertile 
sources of life which they are at present. ^ The 
earth would become for the most part like a 
stagnant marsh. 

But in the higher mountain regions there is a 
beneficent process going on which averts such 
an evil. The precious supplies of water are 
stored up in the solid forms of snow and ice. 
Now, we all know that snow and ice take a 
long time to melt ; and thus Nature regulates 
and° like a prudent housewife economises her 
precious stores. The rivers which she feeds 
continually, from silent snowfields and glaciers 
among her mountain-peaks, are the very arteries 
and veins of the earth ; and as the blood in our 



The Uses of Mountains. 45 

bodies is forced to circulate by pressure from 
the heart, so the rivers are compelled to flow by 
pressure from the great heart of the hills, — 
slow, steady, continuous pressure, not the quick 
pulses which the human heart sends through 
the body. 

And again, as the blood, after circulating 
through the body in an infinite number of life- 
giving streams, returns to the heart once more 
on its journey, so the thousand streams which 
wander over the plains find their way back 
to the heart of the mountains, for the water is 
brought there in the form of vapour and clouds 
by the winds. 

When we build water-towers, and make res- 
ervoirs on high ground to give pressure to the 
water in our pipes, and make it circulate every- 
where, — even to the tops of our houses, — we 
are only taking a hint from Nature. The moun- 
tains are her water-towers, and from these strong 
reservoirs, which never burst, she commands 
her streams, forcing them along their courses in 
order that they may find their way to the 
utmost bounds of continents. 

But there is another way in which mountains 
regulate the supply of water, and prevent it 



46 The Story of the Hills. 

from running away too fast, — one not so effec- 
tive as the freezing process, but still very useful, 
because it applies to the lower hills below the 
line of perpetual snow. This may be well illus- 
trated by the state of some of the Scotch hills 
in the middle of summer or autumn, when there 
is little if any snow resting upon them. 

Any one familiar with these hills will have 
noticed how full of water their sides are. Tiny 
threads of streams trickle slowly along every- 
where ; peat-beds are saturated with dark-brown 
water ; even the grass and soil are generally 
more or less wet, especially under pine forests. 
One can generally get a cup of water some- 
where, except after a long dry summer, which is 
exceptional. Then there is the dew forming 
every night. Forests with their undergrowth 
of soil — moss and fern — also help very con- 
siderably to check the flow of water. We have 
often asked ourselves when watching some swift- 
flowing river, " Where does all this water come 
from ? Why does it not dry up in hot weather? " 
The answer came fully after we had climbed 
several mountains, and seen with our eyes the 
peat-beds among the hills, and heard the tric- 
kling of the tiny rivulets hurrying along to feed 



The Uses of Mountains. 47 

some neighbouring burn, or perhaps to run into 
some mountain tarn or loch, and noticed the 
damp, spongy state of the soil everywhere, — 
not to mention the little springs which here and 
there well up to the surface, and so contribute 
their share. 

The rivers and streams of Scotland assume 
various tints of amber and dark-brown, accord- 
ing to the amount of rain which has recently 
fallen. These colours are due to organic matter 
from the peat. Compare Scott's description of 
the Greta : — 

" In yellow light her currents shone, 
Matching in hue the favourite gem 
Of Albion's mountain diadem." 

The waters of some Scotch rivers after heavy 
rain look as black as pitch. 

Nor must we omit the lakes which abound in 
most mountain regions, and serve as natural res- 
ervoirs for the rivers, besides giving a wonder- 
ful charm to mountain scenery. 

The largest lakes in mountainous regions are 
found on the courses of the rivers ; and there is 
good reason to believe that they were formed, 
not by any process of subsidence, but by the 
same operations that carved out the valleys. In 



48 The Story of the Hills. 

many cases they are due to the damming up of 
a stream. But in some countries the streams 
dry up during summer, — in Palestine or Sinai, 
where there is but little soil on the hills, and 
consequently hardly any vegetation. Such bar- 
ren hills cannot hold the continual supplies 
which pour gently forth from the mountains of 
higher latitudes. 

The Alps feed four of the principal rivers of 
Europe. We cannot do better than quote Pro- 
fessor Bonney, whose writings on the Alps are 
familiar to all geologists. In his i: Alpine Re- 
gions of Switzerland " the following passage 
occurs : — 

" This mass of mountains, the great highlands of 
Europe, is therefore of the utmost physical and geo- 
graphical importance. Rising in places to a height 
of more than fifteen thousand feet above the sea, 
and covered for an extent of many thousand square 
miles with perpetual snow, it is the chief feeder of 
four of the principal rivers in Europe, — the Po, the 
Rhone, the Rhine, and the Danube. But for those 
barren fields of ice, high up among the silent crags, 
the seeming home of winter and death, these great 
arteries of life would every summer dwindle down to 
paltry streams, feebly wandering over stone-strewn 
beds. Stand, for example, on some mountain-spur, 



The Uses of Mountains. 49 

and look clown on the Lombardy plain, all one rich 
carpet of wheat and maize, of rice and vine ; the life 
of those myriad threads of green and gold is fed 
from these icy peaks, which stand out against the 
northern sky in such strange and solemn contrast. 
As it is with the Po, so it is with the Rhine and the 
Rhone, both of which issue from the Alps as broad, 
swelling streams; so, too, with the Danube, which, 
although it does not rise in them, yet receives from 
the Inn and the Brave almost all the drainage of the 
eastern districts." 

A very little reflection will serve to convince 
any one how vastly important and beneficial is 
the slope of the mountains, and how it gives 
force and direction to streams and rivers. With- 
out this force, due to universal gravitation, by 
which the waters seek continually lower levels, 
the supplies in the hills would be useless. Mere 
lakes on flat surfaces would not answer the 
purpose ; and so the sources of water are 
elevated in order that it may pour over the 
v/orld below. 

No writer has given such fascinating descrip- 
tions of mountains as Mr. Ruskin ; and no one 
has more eloquently described the functions they 
perform. In the fourth volume of his " Modern 

4 



50 The Story of the Hills. 

Painters," which every one who cares for moun- 
tains should read, we find the following beautiful 

passage : — 

" Every fountain and river, from the inch-deep 
streamlet that crosses the village lane in trembling 
clearness, to the massy and silent march of the ever- 
lasting multitude of waters in Amazon or Ganges, owe 
their play and purity and power to the ordained eleva- 
tions of the earth. Gentle or steep, extended or abrupt, 
some determined slope of the earth's surface is of course 
necessary before any wave can so much as overtake 
one sedge in its pilgrimage ; and how seldom do we 
enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our 
pleasant brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that 
ordinance, of which every blade of grass that waves in 
their clear waters is a perpetual sign, — that the dew 
and rain fallen on the face of the earth shall find no 
resting-place ; shall find, on the contrary, fixed chan- 
nels traced for them from the ravines of the central 
crests down which they roar in sudden ranks of foam 
to the dark hollows beneath the banks of lowland pas- 
ture, round which they must circle slowly among the 
stems and beneath the leaves of the lilies ; paths pre- 
pared for them by which, at some appointed rate of 
journey, they must evermore descend, sometimes slow, 
and sometimes swift, but never pausing ; the daily 
portion of the earth they have to glide over marked for 
them at each successive sunrise ; the place which has 



The Uses of Mountains. 51 

known them knowing them no more ; and the gate- 
ways of guarding mountains opened for them in cleft 
and chasm, none letting them in their pilgrimage, and 
from afar off the great heart of the sea calling them 
to itself : ' Deep calleth unto deep.' " 

Geologists, however, do not in these days 
teach that the present paths of rivers were made 
for them, but rather that the rivers have carved 
out their own valleys for themselves. The old 
teaching before the days of Lyell and Hutton, 
the founders of modern geology, was that valleys 
were rents in the rocks of the earth's crust formed 
by some wonderful convulsion of Nature, where- 
by they were cracked, torn asunder, and up- 
heaved. But a careful study of rivers and their 
valleys for many years has shown that there is 
no evidence of such sudden convulsions. The 
world is very old indeed, and rivers have been 
flowing much as we see them for ages and ages. 
A few thousand years is to the geologist but a 
short space of time ; and there can be no doubt 
that a stream can in the course of time carve out 
for itself a valley. The operations of Nature seem 
slow to us because our lives are so short, and we 
can see so little change even in a generation ; but 
the effects of these changes mount up enormously 



52 The Story of the Hills. 

when continued through a long space of time. 
Nature works slowly ; but then she has unlimited 
time, and never seems in a hurry. It is like the old 
story of the hare and the tortoise ; and the river, 
working on steadily and quietly for hundreds or 
thousands of years, accomplishes far more in the 
end than sudden floods or violent catastrophes of 
any sort. 

III. Mountains suffer themselves to be sloivly 
worn away in order that the face of the earth may 
be renewed ; in other ivords, they die that ive, and 
all created things, may live. The reader will find 
a full account of the methods by which these re- 
sults are accomplished in chapters v. and vii., 
and therefore we must not anticipate this part of 
the subject. Let it suffice for the present to say 
that this destruction of the hills is brought about 
by the action of heat and cold, of rain and frost, 
of snow and ice, and the thousand streams that 
flow down the -mountain-sides. It is with soils 
that we are chiefly concerned at present. Try to 
think for a moment of the literally vital conse- 
quences which follow from the presence of good 
rich soils over different parts of the earth, and 
ask whether it would be possible for civilised 



The Uses of Mountains. 53 

races of men to flourish and multiply as they do if 
it were not for the great fertile valleys and plains 
of the world. Mountain races are neither rich 
nor powerful. Man exists mainly by cultivation 
of the soil ; and among mountains we only find 
here and there patches that are worthy of the 
labour and expenditure of capital involved in 
cultivation. But in the great plains, in the prin- 
cipal river-valleys of the world, and among the 
lesser hill-ranges it is different. The lowlands 
are the fertile regions. All great and powerful 
nations of the world are children of the plains. 
It was so in the past ; it will be so in the 
future, unless men learn to feed on something 
else than corn, milk, and flesh, which is not very 
likely. 

The Egyptians, the earliest civilised race of 
which we have satisfactory records, dwelt in the 
fertile valley and delta of the Nile. They clearly 
perceived the value of this great river to them- 
selves, and worshipped it accordingly. They 
knew nothing of its source in the far-away lakes 
of Central Africa ; but they knew truly, as He- 
rodotus tells us, that Egypt was " the gift of the 
Nile," for the alluvial soil of its delta has been 
formed by the yearly floods of that great river, 



54 The Story of the Hills. 

as its waters, laden with a fine rich mud, spread 
over its banks, and for a time filled the valley 
with one sheet of water. The Assyrians and 
Babylonians had their home in the valley of the 
Euphrates and Tigris. The Chinese, too, have 
their great rivers. Russia is well watered by 
powerful rivers. The most populous parts of the 
United States of America are watered by the 
great Mississippi, and the other rivers which flow 
into it. England, Germany, and France are 
furnished with well-watered plains. 

Soils are the chief form of national wealth. 
Minerals, such as coal and iron, are of course 
extremely valuable, and help to make an indus- 
trious race rich ; but the land is the main thing, 
after all, and by land we mean soil. The two 
words are almost synonymous. But since the 
soil is formed chiefly of debris brought from the 
mountains, it would be more true to say that 
these are the real sources of wealth. Soils con- 
tain besides a large amount of valuable organic 
matter (that is, decayed matter which has once 
had animal or vegetable life) different kinds of 
minerals, which are necessary to the support 
of plant life : potash, soda, carbonate of lime, 
silica, magnesia, iron, phosphorus, and man- 



The Uses of Mountains. 55 

ganese in their various compounds are all 
present in the rocks of which mountains are 
composed. We must again fall back upon 
"Modern Painters" for an effective descrip- 
tion of the forming of soil by destruction of 
the hills : — 

" The higher mountains suffer their summits to be 
broken into fragments and to be cast down in sheets 
of massy rock, full, as we shall presently see, of every 
substance necessary for the nourishment of plants ; 
these fallen fragments are again broken by frost, and 
ground by torrents into various conditions of sand and 
clay, — materials which are distributed perpetually by 
the streams farther and farther from the mountain's 
base. Every shower that swells the rivulets enables 
their waters to carry certain portions of earth into 
new positions, and exposes new banks of ground to be 
moved in their turn. . . . The process is continued 
more gently, but not less effectively, over all the sur- 
face of the lower undulating country ; and each filter- 
ing thread of summer rain which trickles through the 
short turf of the uplands is bearing its own appointed 
burden of earth down on some new natural garden in 
the dingles beneath." 

It may be laid down as a simple economic 
truth, that no nation can be powerful, rich, or 
prosperous, unless it possess in the first place a 



56 The Story of the Hills. 

good soil. Other conditions, such as large naviga- 
ble rivers, a good seaboard for harbouring ships, 
are also important ; but unless the land will 
yield plenty of food, the population cannot be 
very great, for people must be fed. Foreign 
supplies of corn at a low price, meat and pro- 
visions of various kinds, supplement what is 
grown in England ; but without a good soil 
we could not have become a powerful nation. 

A high state of civilisation is in a large 
measure to be traced to climate and soil. The 
sequence is somewhat as follows : — 

Mountains collect rain. 

Rain fills the rivers. 

Rivers make rich alluvial plains. 

Agriculture follows : and food is produced. 

Abundant food maintains a large population. 

The population works to supply its various 
wants : such as roads, railways, ships, houses, 
machinery, etc. Then follows exchange with 
other countries. They send us what they can 
best produce, and we send them what we can 
best and most easily produce, and so both par- 
ties gain. 

Thus towns spring up. Education, refine- 
ment, learning, and the higher arts follow from 



The Uses of Mountains. 57 

the active life of towns, where more brain -work 
is required, and the standard of life is higher. 

And thus we may, in imagination, follow step 
by step the various stages by which the highest 
phases of civilisation are brought to pass, be- 
ginning at the mountains and ending with 
human beings of the highest type, — the phil- 
osopher, artist, poet, or statesman, not omitting 
the gentler sex, who are often said to rule the 
world. 

The following lines of Milton possess, in the 
light of these facts, a deeper meaning than the 
poet probably intended to convey : — 

" Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures 
AVhilst the landscape round it measures : 
Russet lawns and fallows grey, 
Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 
Mountains on whose barren breast 
The labouring clouds do often rest; 
Meadows trim with daisies pied, 
Shallow brooks and rivers wide; 
Flowers and battlements it sees 
Bosomed high in tufted trees, — 
Where perhaps some beauty lies, 
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes." 

With a little rearrangement of the lines, 
the sequence we have indicated above would 
be well illustrated. The mountains must 
come first ; then the clouds, ready to bring 



58 The Story of the Hills. 

forth their rain ; then the brooks and rivers, 
then " russet lawns and fallows grey," — with 
their ; ' nibbling flocks." Then come the 
human elements in the scene, — the " towers 
and battlements," containing armed warriors, 
well fed, no doubt, and ready to do their mas- 
ter's bidding ; lastly, the lady who adorns the 
home of her lord, and, let us hope, makes it 
worth fighting for. 

For commercial purposes, large navigable 
rivers are of great use. And in spite of the 
modern railway, rivers still exert an influence 
in determining the routes followed by trade. 
London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other busy 
centres of life owe their importance to the 
rivers which flow through them, especially since 
they are tidal rivers. Heavily laden barges may 
be seen from London Bridge going up and down 
with the tide every day. 

Since the direction as well as the existence 
of large rivers is regulated by mountains, it 
is clear that mountains have a very direct influ- 
ence on the trade of the world. 

Mountains sxqoply many of our ivants. Be- 
sides water and soil, how many useful things 



The Uses of Mountains. 59 

come from the hills ! Their slopes, watered 
by the clouds, frequently support an abundant 
growth of pine forest ; and thus we get wood for 
the shipwright and joiner. Again, mountains 
are composed of harder rocks than we find in 
the plains, and that is one reason why they 
stand out high above the rest of the world. 
Their substance has been hardened to with- 
stand for a longer time the destruction to which 
all rocks are subjected. They have been greatly 
compressed and generally more or less har- 
dened by subterranean heat. We bake clay 
and make it into hard bricks ; so Nature has 
baked and otherwise hardened the once soft 
strata of which mountains are chiefly com- 
posed, converting them into slates, schist, 
gneiss, and other kinds of rock called " meta- 
morphic" by geologists, because they have 
been altered or metamorphosed from their 
original condition (see chapter viii., page 277). 
Again, granite, basalt, and other rocks known 
as " igneous," which once existed in a molten 
condition, have forced their way up from sub- 
terranean regions into the rocks forming moun- 
tain-chains ; and a good deal of the hardening 
just alluded to is due to the presence of 



60 The Story of the Hills. 

these fiery intruders, which have baked and 
hardened the rocks around them to a consider- 
able extent, altering at the same time their 
mineral composition. The same causes which 
led to the injection of granite, basalt, and 
other igneous rocks in mountain-ranges brought 
other consequences in their train. Whatever 
the causes, they were closely connected with 
volcanic eruptions, so that highly heated water 
and steam found their way through cracks and 
other fissures in the rocks ; and in the course 
of time the chemical actions thus set up led 
to the deposition of valuable metallic ores 
within these fissures. In this way mineral 
veins were formed ; and volcanic action seems 
to be largely responsible for the production of 
minerals. Thus we find around Vesuvius, 
and in fact in all volcanic regions, large and 
varied supplies of minerals. Now, the geolo- 
gist discovers that many mountain-chains — 
such, for example, as the Grampians, Alps, and 
Carpathians — have in past geological periods 
been the seats of volcanic action on a grand 
scale ; and so we need not be surprised to learn 
that mountainous countries yield large sup- 
plies of valuable gems and metallic ores (see 



The Uses of Mountains. 61 

chapter viii., page 277). Even in the days of 
Solomon, the active and business-like Phoeni- 
cians were carrying on trade with Great Britain ; 
and the tin came from Cornwall. Besides tin, 
gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc, and other metals 
come from our hills. Now, however, we get 
our copper mostly from the Andes, and our 
gold from Australia or South Africa, because 
it can be got more cheaply from these coun- 
tries, to which many of our Cornish miners 
have emigrated. 

Precious stones also come chiefly from the 
hills, for the same reason ; for they were 
formed at the same time and by the same 
causes. Cairngorms, agates, chalcedony, jas- 
per, onyx, topaz, diamonds, and many other 
gems are silent but certain witnesses to the 
action of subterranean heat, acting long ago 
on the rocks which we now see standing up 
high above the general surface of the ground, 
though once they were buried deep down be- 
low the surface. Diamonds as well as gold 
are often got from the beds of streams, but 
this is easily accounted for ; the streams have 
washed them out and brought them down 
from the hills. 



62 The Story of the Hills. 

The following words from the Book of Job 
(xxviii. 5) might well be applied to the hills. 

"As for the earth, out of it cometh bread : 
And underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. 
The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, 
And it hath dust of gold.*' 

We have thus explained the three principal 
services rendered by mountains, but some others 
remain to be mentioned. 

Mountains have an important influence on cli- 
mate. The climate of highlands everywhere has 
certain peculiarities which distinguish it from 
that of adjacent lowlands. The air resting on 
mountains is less dense than that of the lowlands, 
and hence has fewer molecules to obstruct the 
entering sunbeams by day, or to stop the out- 
ward radiation at night. Therefore mountain 
air must be cooler ; and so we find that on 
mountains the mean, or average, annual tem- 
perature is lower. This rarity of the air 
causes the ground to become hotter by day 
and colder by night than the ground of the 
plains ; and so the extremes of temperature are 
greater. These extremes are injurious to vege- 
tation in the higher regions, and the want of 



The Uses of Mountains. 63 

moisture still more so. But mountain-slopes 
up to a certain height usually have a moist 
climate ; that is, they have more clouds and 
rain than the surrounding lowlands. Below 
the region of snow there is generally a heavy 
growth of forest ; and forests in their turn exer- 
cise an important influence, helping to collect 
moisture, and in various ways to prevent ex- 
tremes either of heat or cold. 

The earth is divided into three well-marked 
zones or belts of climate: (1) The torrid zone 
within the tropics, where the sun is vertical twice 
a year, and days and nights are nearly equal ; 
(2) The temperate zones, where the sun's rays 
come more obliquely, and so are less powerful, 
and where the length of day and night varies 
considerably ; and (3) The frigid zones, round each 
of the poles, regions of intense cold, where for 
six months of the year the sun is never seen. 
Now, these broad divisions, so familiar to school 
children, are considerably interfered with by the 
height of various districts above the sea-level, 
or, as geographers say, by altitude. High 
ranges of mountains bring somewhat arctic 
conditions with them, even in low latitudes, 
where one would expect great heat. Thus the 



64 The Story of the Hills. 

climate of the plains is very different from that 
of their neighbouring mountain-ranges, although 
their latitudes are practically the same. Trav- 
ellers in Switzerland know how hot it can be in 
the Rhone Valley or in the plain of Lombardy, 
and how much cooler it is when you get up 
among the glaciers and the snowfields. Or to 
take an illustration from Great Britain : a hot 
summer would be somewhat trying in Edinburgh, 
Glasgow, or even Inverness, because they lie low, 
while among the Grampians, on Speyside, or 
Braemar, it would be very pleasant. 

Vegetation follows climate. The sultry plains 
of the Ganges show a luxuriant tropical vegeta- 
tion, while on the middle slopes of the Himalayas 
the climate is temperate, like that of Europe, and 
consequently the vegetation resembles that of a 
temperate region ; and the highest parts of this 
great range are like polar latitudes in their cli- 
mate, and partly also in their vegetation. 

The arctic character of the climate of high 
mountain regions shows itself in the flora ; for on 
the High Alps and the Highlands of Scotland 
and Norway, we find no small number of truly 
arctic plants whose home is much farther north. 
A very long time ago, when the climate of the 



The Uses of Mountains. 65 

whole of Northern Europe was extremely severe, 
and when great glaciers descended from the 
mountains into the plains, so that the aspect of 
the country was somewhat similar to that of 
Greenland at the present day, arctic plants and 
animals came down from their northern home, 
and flourished abundantly. This was during the 
Great Ice Aye, which has left behind unmistak- 
able evidences which the geologist can interpret 
as if they were written records. Then for some 
reason the climate became milder, the glaciers 
melted away, in Great Britain at least ; but these 
arctic plants were left behind, and flourished still 
on the cool mountains, though they died out on 
the warm plains (see chap. iv.. pp. 123-124). 

Mountains help to cause movement and change 
in the atmosphere. Let us see how this takes 
place. Mountains expose on one side their 
masses of rock to the full heat of the sun. Rocks 
are capable of becoming highly heated under a 
blazing sun : we have known stone walls, even in 
England, to be almost too hot to touch ; and 
perhaps the reader may have often noticed the 
quivering of the hot air as it rises from the ground 
on a summer day, especially over a road or any 



66 The Story of the Hills. 

piece of bare rocky ground. This quivering tells 
us that the air is highly heated by the ground 
beneath, and is consequently rising. You know 
how the pebbles look beneath a clear running 
stream ; and the things which we see through 
air in this state all seem to be similarly moving 
or quivering. It is easy then to imagine how 
masses of heated air would rise up from the side of 
a mountain-range which faces the sun, — that is, 
the southern side, — while on the other, or north- 
ern side they cast a soft shadow for leagues over 
the plains at their feet. In this way mountains 
divide a district into two different climates, with 
a light warm air on their southern slopes, and 
colder air on the northern, and the rising of the 
warm air will cause a certain amount of circula- 
tion and movement. Hence mountains help to 
make currents in the atmosphere, and these cur- 
rents produce important consequences. 

When mountain-ranges trend more or less di- 
rectly across the direction of prevailing winds, 
they always have a moist side and a dry one. In 
the torrid zone, where easterly winds prevail, the 
eastern slope is usually the moist side ; but in 
higher latitudes, as, for example, in Europe, the 
western side of mountain -ranges receives the 



The Uses of Mountains. 67 

greatest amount of rainfall, because westerly 
winds prevail there. 

Mountains are barriers dividing not only one 
nation from another, but separating also various 
tribes of plants and animals. It will be readily 
understood that with the exception of birds, 
whose powers of flight render them independent 
of physical barriers, most animals find mountains 
more impassable than men do. We can make 
roads and railways, but they cannot thus aid 
their powers of locomotion ; hence mountains 
put limits to their migrations. Still, climate 
and food supplies have a greater influence in de- 
terming the boundaries of zoological provinces 
(see chapter iv.). 

Mountains are the backbones of continents. A 
glance at a map of the world will show that 
there is evidently a close connection between 
continents and great mountain-chains. This 
connection shows itself both in the shapes and 
general direction of continents. Thus, the 
long continuous line of mountain-chain which 
extends from the southern spur of the Andes 
to the northern end of the Rocky Mountains, — 



68 The Story of the Hills. 

a distance of about nine thousand miles, — cor- 
responds with the general trend of the North 
American continent, and forms the axis or 
backbone of that vast tract of land. It seems 
as if the sea on its western side were kept at 
bay by this great rocky wall, while on its 
eastern side the rivers have formed new land. 
A line of mountains is often the coast line, 
for the sea cannot overcome it unless subsi- 
dence takes place. The backbone of Asia and 
Europe runs east" and west, and the continental 
area of the Old World follows the same general 
direction. 

These are the chief uses of mountains, and 
the facts which we have brought forward will 
serve to show how indispensable they are. 
The following eloquent passage from " Modern 
Painters" may form a fitting close to the present 
chapter : — 

" And thus those desolate and threatening ranges 
which in nearly all ages of the world men have looked 
upon with aversion or with horror, and shrunk back from 
as if they were haunted by perpetual images of death, 
are in reality sources of life and happiness, far fuller 
and more beneficent than all the bright fruitfulness of 
the plain. The valleys only feed : the mountains feed 



The Uses of Mountains. 69 

and guard and strengthen us. We take our ideas of 
fearfulness and sublimity alternately from the moun- 
tains and the sea ; but we associate them unjustly. 
The sea-wave, with all its beneficence, is yet devouring 
and terrible ; but the silent wave of the blue mountain 
is lifted towards heaven in a stillness of perpetual 
mercy ; and the one surge, unfathomable in its dark- 
ness, the other unshaken in its faithfulness, for ever 
bear the seal of their appointed symbolism : — 

" ' Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, 
Thy judgements are a great deep.' " 



CHAPTER III. 

SUNSHINE AND STOEM ON THE MOUNTAINS. 

I would entreat your company 
To see the wonders of the world. 

Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

" The spirit of the hills is action, that of the 
lowlands repose." l The plains, with their 
peaceful meadows and meandering streams, 
might almost be said to be asleep ; but the 
mountains are wide awake. They are emphati- 
cally scenes of violent or rapid action. The 
wind blows more fiercely among the mountain- 
peaks than over the plains below ; heat and 
cold are more extreme ; and every process of 
change or decay seems quickened. 

Avalanches, falls of rock, earthquakes, storms, 
and floods exhibit the more terrible aspects of 
the hills. Yet they have their gentler moods : 
witness the brightness of the starry sky over- 
head, and its intense blue by day, the won- 
derful sunrises and sunsets, the lovely effects 

: Ruskin, " Modern Painters." 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 71 

of light and shade, of cloud and mist, the still- 
ness and silence of the eternal snows in summer, 
and the beauty of the Alpine flower. 

Let us see what those who know mountains 
best have to say about the wonderful things 
they have seen there. To begin with sunset 
and sunrise. Professor Bonney remarks, — 

" Not the least interesting peculiarity of an Alpine 
sunset is the frequency with which its most beautiful 
effects are revealed quite unexpectedly. Often at 
the close of a rainy afternoon, the clouds, just before 
the sun goes down, break, roll up, sometimes disperse 
as if by magic, in the glory of those crimson rays 
that come darting upon them and piercing every rift. 
Many a time have I watched the vapours around a 
mountain-peak curling lightly upwards, and melting 
away into the sky, till at last the unclouded summit 
glowed with flushes of orange and rose, ere it grew 
pale and dead in its shroud of fresh-fallen snow." 1 

Here is a description by Professor Tyndall 
of a sunset witnessed in the neighbourhood of 
the Weisshorn : — 

" As the day approached its end, the scene assumed 
the most sublime aspect. All the lower portions of 
the mountains were deeply shaded, while the loftiest 
1 The Alpine Regions of Switzerland. 



72 The Story of the Hills. 

peaks, ranged upon a semicircle, were fully exposed 
to the sinking sun. They seemed pyramids of solid 
fire ; while here and there long stretches of crimson 
light drawn over the higher snowlields linked the 
glorified summits together. An intensely illuminated 
geranium flower seems to swim in its own colour, 
which apparently surrounds the petals like a layer, 
and defeats by its lustre any attempt of the eye to 
seize upon the sharp outline of the leaves. A similar 
effect has been observed upon the mountains ; the 
glory did not seem to come from them alone, but 
seemed also effluent from the air around them. This 
gave them a certain buoyancy which suggested entire 
detachment from the earth. They swam in splendour 
which intoxicated the soul ; and 1 will not now repeat 
in my moments of soberness the extravagant analo- 
gies which ran through my brain. As the evening- 
advanced, the eastern heavens low down assumed a 
deep purple hue, above which, and blended with it 
by infinitesimal gradations, was a belt of red, and 
over this again zones of orange and violet. I walked 
round the corner of the mountain at sunset, and found 
the western sky glowing with a more transparent crim- 
son than that which overspread the east. The crown 
of the Weisshorn was embedded in this magnificent 
light. After sunset the purple of the east changed 
to a deep neutral tint ; and against the faded red which 
spread above it, the sun-forsaken mountains laid their 
cold and ghostly heads. The ruddy colour vanished 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 73 

more and more ; the stars strengthened in lustre, un- 
til finally the moon and they held undisputed posses- 
sion of the blue-grey sky." l 

Marvellous sunsets are to be witnessed from 
the mountains of the New World. The follow- 
ing is a short and graphic description of sunset 
glories on the Sierra Nevada Mountains by Mr. 
Clarence King, whose name is well known to 
geologists : — 

" While I looked, the sun descended, shadows 
climbed the Sierras, casting a gloom over foothill and 
pine, until at last only the snow summits, reflecting 
the evening light, glowed like red lamps along the 
mountain-wall for hundreds of miles. The rest of 
the Sierra became invisible. The snow burned for a 
moment in the violet sky, and at last went out." 

These marvellous effects appeal powerfully 
to our sense of beauty and produce in most 
minds feelings of intense delight ; but they 
also appeal to the reasoning faculty in man, 
and an intelligent observer naturally inquires, 
" Why are these things so ? How are those 
glorious colours of crimson, orange, and yellow 
produced ? " A full explanation cannot be 
attempted here ; but this much may perhaps 

1 Mountaineering in 1861 (Longman). 



74 The Story of the Hills. 

be said without tiring the patience of the 
reader. White light, such as sunlight or the 
light from an electric arc, is composed of all 
the colours of the rainbow, — violet, indigo, 
blue, green, yellow, orange, and reel. A ray 
of sunlight on passing through a prism is split 
up into all these colours in the above order, 
and we get them arranged in a band which 
is known as the spectrum. Thus it is proved 
that white light is made up of all colours (black 
is not a colour, but the absence of colour). Now, 
when the sun is low clown in the sky, as at 
sunset, only some of these colour-rays are able 
to pass through the atmosphere and so to reach 
our eyes, while others are stopped in passing 
through very many miles of atmosphere (as 
they must obviously do when the sun is low). 
Those which are stopped are the blue rays 
and others allied to blue, such as purple and 
green ; but the reel and yellow rays are able to 
pass on till they come to us. Hence red, yellow, 
and orange are the prevailing sunset tints. 

What, then, becomes of the missing blue rays ? 
They are caught by the myriads of little floating 
particles in the air, and reflected away from us. 
That is why we do not see them ; their course 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 75 

is turned back, just as waves breaking against a 
stone sea-wall are turned back or reflected. A 
person situated behind such a wall will not see the 
waves which break against it ; but suppose a very 
big wave came : it would come right over, and 
then we should soon become aware of its presence. 
So it is with the little waves of light : some 
are stopped and turned back as they break 
against the myriads of little dust particles and 
the still more numerous particles of mist always 
floating in the air ; while others, which are larger, 
break over them and travel on undisturbed until 
they reach our eyes. Now, the larger waves of 
light are the red waves, while the smaller ones 
are the blue waves ; hence there is no difficulty 
in understanding why the red waves (or vibra- 
tions) are seen at sunset and sunrise, to the ex- 
clusion of the blue waves. But it must be borne 
in mind that light-waves are of infinitesimal 
smallness, thousands and thousands of them go- 
ing to make up an inch. Sound also travels in 
waves, and the phenomena of sound serve to 
illustrate those of light ; but sound-waves are 
very much larger. 

The reason why the sky overhead appears blue 
is that we see the blue rays reflected down to the 



76 The Story of the Hills. 

earth from myriads of tiny dust and water 
particles, while the red rays pass on over our 
heads, which is just the reverse of what happens 
at sunset. 

On the southern slopes of the Alps the blues 
of the sky are generally very different from those 
on the northern side ; and this is probably due to 
the greater quantity of water-vapour in the air, 
for the moist winds come from the south. Sun- 
rises in the Alps are quite as glorious to behold 
as sunsets ; but comparatively few people rise 
early enough to see them. Speaking generally, 
it may be said that in Alpine sunrises the prevail- 
ing colours are orange and gold, in sunsets 
crimson or violet-pink. After a cool night the 
atmospheric conditions will obviously be different 
from those which exist after a warm clay, and 
more water-vapour will have been condensed into 
mist or cloud. Hence we should expect a some- 
what different effect. 

The snowflelds on high ranges of mountains 
are of a dazzling whiteness ; and their bright 
glare is so great as to distress the eyes of those 
who walk over them without blue glasses, and 
even to cause inflammation. At these heights 
the traveller is not only exposed to the direct 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 77 

rays of the sun, untempered save for a thin veil 
of rarefied air, but also to an intense glare pro- 
duced by the little snow-crystals which scatter 
around the beams of light falling upon them. 
Scientific men, who have studied these matters, 
say that the scorching of the skin and " sun- 
burning " experienced by Alpine travellers is 
not caused, as might be supposed, by the heat 
of the sun, but by the rays of light darting and 
flashing on all sides from myriads of tiny snow- 
crystals. 

Occasionally a soft lambent glow has been ob- 
served on snowfields at night. This is a very 
curious phenomenon, to which the name of 
"phosphorescence" has, rightly or wrongly, 
been given. A pale light may often be seen on 
the sea during a summer night, when the water 
is disturbed in any way ; and if one is rowing in 
a boat, the oars seem glowing with a faint and 
beautiful light. It is well known that this is 
caused by myriads of little light-producing ani- 
malcules in the sea-water. But we can hardly 
suppose that the glow above referred to is pro- 
duced by a similar cause. One observer says the 
glow is "something like that produced by the 
flame of naphtha j" and he goes on to say that at 



78 The Story of the Hills. 

every step " an illuminated circle or nimbus about 
two inches in breadth surrounded our feet, and 
we seemed to be ploughing our way through 
fields of light, and raising clods of it, if I may 
be allowed the expression, in our progress." An- 
other observer, also an Alpine traveller, says that 
at almost every footstep the snowy particles, 
which his companion in front lifted with his 
feet from the freshly fallen snow, fell in little 
luminous showers. The exact cause which pro- 
duces this strange effect at night has not been 
ascertained. 

There is another curious phenomenon often 
seen just before sunset on a mountain in Hungary. 
It is known as " The Spectre of the Brocken." 
The Brocken is the highest summit of the Hartz 
Mountains. As you step out upon the plateau 
upon the top of the hill, your shadow, grim and 
gigantic, is apparently flung right out against the 
eastern sky, where it flits from place to place, 
following your every movement. The explana- 
tion is simply this: to the east of the Hartz' 
Mountains there is always a very dense and hazy 
atmosphere, so dense that it presents a surface 
capable of receiving the impression of a shadow, 
and of retaining it, as a wall does. The shadows 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 79 

are really close at hand, not a long way off, as 
might at first sight be supposed. If very far 
away, they would be too faint to be visible. 

In all mountainous regions the permanent 
habitations of men cease at a limit far below the 
most elevated points reached by the mountain- 
climber. St. Veran and Gargl, the highest vil- 
lages of France and Germany, are situated at 
the respective heights of 6,591 and 6,197 feet; 
but the Hospice of St. Bernard, in Switzerland, 
built centuries ago to shelter travellers when be- 
numbed with the cold, is much more elevated, 
its height being 8,110 feet above sea-level. The 
most elevated cluster of houses in the world is 
the convent of Hanle, inhabited by twenty Thi- 
betan priests ; its height is 14,976 feet. None of 
the villages of the Andes, except perhaps that of 
Santa Anna, in Bolivia, have been built at so 
great a height. 

Travellers who venture to ascend lofty moun- 
tains not only have to suffer all the rigours of 
cold and run the risk of being frozen on their 
route, but they may also experience painful sen- 
sations owing to the rarefaction of the air. It 
would naturally be supposed that at an elevation 



80 The Story of the Hills. 

at which the pressure of the atmosphere is re- 
duced to one half, or even to one fourth that of 
the plains below, a certain uneasiness should be 
caused by the change, the more so since other 
conditions, such as warmth and moisture, are 
different. Undaunted climbers, like Professor 
Tyndall, who have never felt the effect of this 
" mountain -sickness "(maZ de montagne), deny 
that the sensations proceed from anything else 
than mere fatigue. In the Himalayas, the trav- 
eller does not begin to suffer from the attacks of 
this ailment until he has reached a height of 
16,500 feet ; while on the Andes a large num- 
ber of persons are affected by it at an altitude of 
10,700 feet. In the South American mountains, 
the symptoms are much more serious : to the fa- 
tigue, head-ache, and want of breath are added 
giddiness, sometimes fainting-fits, and bleeding 
from lips, gums, and eyelids. The aeronaut, how- 
ever, who is spared all the fatigue of climbing, 
rarely suffers any inconvenience except from 
cold, at such elevations. But on rising to greater 
heights, 30,000 or 40,000 feet, the malady 
shows itself ; and if the balloon continued to 
rise, the aerial voyager would infallibly perish. 
Professor Bonney says : — 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 81 

" I have occasionally seen persons singularly af- 
fected on high mountains ; and as the barometer 
stands at about sixteen inches on Mont Blanc, and 
at thirty at sea-level, one would expect this great 
difference to be felt. Still, I do not think it easy 
to separate the inconveniences due to atmosphere 
from those caused by unwonted fatigue, and am 
inclined to attribute most of them to the latter." 

But the fact that the aeronaut suffers seems 
conclusive. 

The violent storms which break upon moun- 
tain districts often cause floods of considerable 
magnitude, such as may be compared with the 
memorable bursting of the Holmflrth reservoir. 
Hardly a year passes without considerable dam- 
age being clone : bridges are swept away ; roads 
are buried under torrents of mud, and fields 
overwhelmed with debris. In August of the 
year 1860 a severe storm was witnessed by 
visitors staying at Zermatt. It began with a 
thunder-storm ; and rain fell for about thirty-six 
hours, after which, as may be supposed, the tor- 
rents were swollen far beyond their usual size. 
Lower down in the valleys much harm was 
done, but there one bridge only was swept 



82 The Story of the Hills. 

away. It was, however, an awful sight to 
see the Visp roaring under one of the bridges 
that remained, and to hear the heavy thuds 
of the boulders that were being hurried on 
and dashed against one another by the torrent. 
In September, 1556, the town of Locarno, in 
the Canton Ticino, was visited by a destructive 
storm and flood. The day began by several 
shocks of earthquake, followed, about five 
o'clock, by a terrific gale from the south. 
Part of the old castle was blown down ; the 
doors of St. Victor's Church were burst open 
by a blast while the priest was at the altar; 
and everything within was overturned. At 
midday the clouds were so thick that it was 
almost as dark as night. A violent thunder- 
storm and torrents of rain followed, lasting 
from two to six o'clock in the evening. The 
rivulets all became torrents ; the stream flowing 
through the town was so choked by uprooted 
trees and rocks that its water flooded the 
streets and almost buried them under mud 
and gravel. Such a sight as this gives one a 
powerful impression of the geological work of 
streams when greatly swollen ; for all this 
debris must have been brought down from 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 83 

the surrounding mountains. Many lives were 
lost by this calamity, and a great deal of prop- 
erty was destroyed. Late in the year, during 
unsettled weather, the traveller often encoun- 
ters on Alpine passes a sudden storm of snow, 
accompanied by violent gusts of wind, which 
fill the air with drifted flakes ; so that becom- 
ing bewildered, he loses his way, and at last 
sinks down benumbed with cold and dies. 
Many a frequented pass in Switzerland has 
been the scene of death from this cause. Ex- 
hausted with fatigue, and overcome with cold, 
the traveller sinks down by the wayside, and 
the guides, after having in vain endeavoured to 
urge him on, are compelled, in order to save 
their own lives, to leave him to his fate and 
press forward. The name " Tourmente " is given 
to these storms. 

On the tops of the highest mountains, even in 
very fine weather, the wind often blows with 
great force ; and the north wind, supposed to be 
the mountaineer's best friend, is sometimes his 
enemy. It not unfrequently happens that a 
gale renders the passage of some exposed slope 
or ridge too dangerous, or the intense cold pro- 
duces frost-bites, so that an expedition has to be 



84 The Story of the Hills. 

abandoned when success is within reach, which 
naturally is very annoying. Professor Bonney, 
speaking of such a gale which he experienced in 
1864, says, — 

" The cold was something horrible ; the wind 
seemed to blow not round, but through me, freez- 
ing my very marrow, and making my teeth chatter 
like castanets ; and if I stopped for a moment, I shook 
as if in an ague-fit. It whisked up the small spiculae of 
frozen snow, and dashed them against my face with 
such violence that it was hardly possible to look to 
windward. Thin sheets of ice as large as my hand 
were whirled along the surface of the glacier like 
paper. . . . When these gales are raging, the drifted 
snow is blown far to leeward of the peaks in long 
streamers like delicate cirrus-clouds ; and on such 
occasions the mountain is said by the guides fumer sa 
pipe (to smoke his pipe). This Mont Blanc was do- 
ing to some purpose the day that we were upon him." 

It is a curious fact that these gales are often 
confined to the crests of the mountains, so that 
the wind may be raging among the peaks while 
a few hundred feet lower down there is compara- 
tive calm. 

The chief of the prevailing winds in the Alps 
is the Form. This is a hot blast from the 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 85 

south which probably comes from the African 
deserts. On its approach the air becomes 
close and stifling, the sky, at first of unusual 
clearness, gradually thickens to a muddy and 
murky hue, animals become restless and dis- 
quieted by the unnatural dryness of the hot 
blast which now comes sweeping over the hills. 
In some villages, it is said, all the fires are 
extinguished when this wind begins to blow, 
for fear lest some chance spark should fall on 
the dry wooden roofs and set the whole place 
in a blaze. Still the Fohn is not altogether 
an " ill wind that blows nobody any good," 
for under its warm touch the winter snows 
melt away with marvellous rapidity. In the 
valley of Grindelwald it causes a snow-bed 
two feet thick to disappear in about a couple 
of hours, and produces in twenty-four hours a 
greater effect than the sun does in fifteen days. 
There is a Swiss proverb which rather pro- 
fanely says : " If the Fohn does not blow, the 
golden sun and the good God can do nothing 
with the snow." 

In summer-time, however, the south wind 
is never welcome, for the vapour which it 
brings from the Italian plains is condensed by 



86 The Story of the Hills. 

the snows of the Alps, and streams down in 
torrents of rain. 

A thunder-storm is always a grand spectacle. 
Among mountains such storms are more fre- 
quent than on the plains, and also, as might 
be expected, far more magnificent, especially 
at night. Flashes, or rather sheets, of unutter- 
able brilliancy light up the sky ; distant chains 
of mountains are revealed for a moment, only 
to be instantly eclipsed by the pall of night. 
Says Professor Bonney, — 

" No words can adequately express the awful gran- 
deur of these tempests when they burst among the 
mountains. I have often been out in them, — in fact, 
far more frequently than was pleasant ; but perhaps 
the grandest of all was one that welcomed me for the 
first time to Chamouni. As we entered the valley, 
and caught sight of the white pinnacles of the glacier 
des Bossons, a dark cloud came rolling up rapidly from 
the west. Beneath it, just where two tall peaks tow- 
ered up, the sky glowed like a sheet of red-hot copper, 
and a lurid mist spread over the neighbouring hills, 
wrapping them, as it seemed, in a robe of flame. On- 
ward rolled the cloud ; the lightning began to play ; 
down the valley rushed a squall of wind, driving the 
dust high in air before it, and followed by a torrent of 



Sttnshine and Storm on the Mountains. 87 

rain. Flash succeeded flash almost incessantly, — now 
darting from cloud to cloud ; now dividing itself into a 
number of separate streaks of fire, and dancing all 
over the sky ; now streaming down upon the crags, and 
at times even leaping up from some lofty peak into the 
air. The colours were often most beautiful, and bright 
beyond description." 

The mountain traveller, when caught in a 
thunder-storm, undergoes a strange experience, 
not unattended with danger. One observer 1 thus 
describes his sensations : — 

" A loud peal of thunder was heard ; and shortly 
after I observed that a strange singing sound, like that 
of a kettle, was issuing from my alpenstock. We 
halted, and finding that all the axes and stocks emitted 
the same sound, stuck them into the snow. The 
guide from the hotel now pulled off his cap, shouting 
that his head burned ; and his hair was seen to have a 
similar appearance to that which it would have pre- 
sented had he been on an insulated stool under a 
powerful electrical machine. We all of us experienced 
the sensation of pricking and burning in some part of 
the body, more especially in the head and face, my hair 
also standing on end in an uncomfortable but very 
amusing manner. The snow gave out a hissing sound, 
as though a heavy shower of hail were falling ; the veil 
on the wide-awake of one of the party stood upright in 

1 Mr. R. S. Watson, in '-The Alpine Journal,'' vol. i.,p. 143. 



88 The Story of the Hit Is. 

the air ; and on waving our hands, the singing sound 
issued loudly from the fingers. Whenever a peal of 
thunder was heard, the phenomenon ceased, to be re- 
sumed before its echoes died away. At these times 
we felt shocks, more or less violent, in those portions 
of the body which were most affected. By one of 
these shocks my right arm was paralysed so completely 
that I could neither use nor raise it for several min- 
utes, nor indeed until it had been severely rubbed ; and 
I suffered much pain in it at the shoulder-joint for 
some hours." 

The successive layers of snow which fall on 
the mountains do not remain there for ever. 
Unless got rid of in some way their thickness 
would mount up to an enormous extent. It is 
reckoned that on the Alps the average yearly 
fall of snow is thirty-three feet. In the course 
of a century, therefore, the height of these moun- 
tains would be increased by 3,300 feet, which 
we know is not the case. Various causes pre- 
vent its accumulating, among which we may 
mention the powerful influence of the sun's rays, 
the evaporation promoted by the atmosphere, 
the thawing influence of rain and mist, ava- 
lanches, and lastly, which is perhaps the most 
important, the fact that the snow composing the 
snowfields, as they are called, of the high regions 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 89 

slowly creeps down towards the valleys, where 
they move along as glaciers, the ends of which 
are gradually melted away by the warm air sur- 
rounding them, and thus the muddy glacier- 
streams are originated. Few perils are more 
dreaded by the inhabitant of the Alps than 
those of the avalanches. The particular way in 
which each avalanche descends is varied accord- 
ing to the sha.pe of the mountain, the condition 
of the snow, and the time of the year. Hence 
there are three different kinds of avalanche. 
First, there is the ice-avalanche. The smaller 
glaciers, which, in the Alps, cling to the upper 
slopes of the higher mountains, frequently ter- 
minate abruptly on the edge of some precipice. 
Thus the ice, urged on by the pressure of the 
masses above it, moves forward until it plunges 
over and falls into the abyss below. Large por- 
tions break off ; and these, as they bound down 
the cliffs, are dashed into countless pieces, which 
leap from crag to crag high into the air : now 
the falling mass, like some swollen torrent, 
dashes with sullen roar through a gully, now, 
emerging, crashes over a precipice, or spreads 
itself out like a fan, as it hisses down a snow- 
slope. These avalanches expend their force in 



90 The Story of the Hills. 

the higher regions, and are harmless, unless 
any one happens to be crossing their track at the 
time ; but accidents from this source can gener- 
ally be avoided. In the distance the avalanches 
look like waterfalls of the purest foam, but when 
approached are found to be composed of frag- 
ments of ice of every size, from one, two, or 
more cubic yards down to tiny little balls. In 
spring and summer, when the white layers, 
softened by the heat, are falling away every 
hour from the lofty summits of the Alps, the 
pedestrian, taking up a position on some adjacent 
headland, may watch these sudden cataracts 
dashing down into the gorges from the heights 
of the shining peaks. Year after year travellers 
seated at their ease on the grassy banks of the 
Wengern Alp have watched with pleasure the 
avalanches rolling to the base of the silvery 
pyramid of the Jungfrau. First, the mass of ice 
is seen to plunge forth like a cataract, and lose 
itself in the lower parts of the mountain ; 
whirlwinds of powdered snow, like clouds of 
bright smoke, rise far and wide into the air ; 
and then, when the cloud has passed away, and 
the region has again assumed its solemn calm, 
the thunder of the avalanche is suddenly heard 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 91 

reverberating in deep echoes in the mountain 
gorges, as if it were the voice of the mountain 
itself. 

The other two kinds of avalanche are com- 
posed of snow. The dust-avalanche usually 
falls in winter-time, when the mountains are 
covered deep with fresh-fallen snow. Such 
masses of snow, not yet compacted into ice, 
rest insecurely upon the icy slopes, and hang 
in festoons and curtains over the peaks, or 
lie on smooth banks of pasture, until some 
accident, such as a gust of wind, breaks the 
spell, and the whole mass slides down into 
the valley below. These avalanches are ac- 
companied by fearful blasts of wind which 
work dire destruction. Almost the whole vil- 
lage of Leukerbad was destroyed by one of 
these on the 14th of January, 1719, and fifty- 
five persons perished. In 1749, more than 
one hundred persons were killed in the village 
of Ruaras (Grisons), which during the night 
was overwhelmed by an avalanche. So si- 
lently were some of the houses buried that 
the inhabitants, on waking in the morning, 
could not conceive why the day did not dawn. 
It is said, though it seems almost incredible, 



92 The Story of the Hills. 

that in the time of the Suabian War, in the 
year 1498, one of these avalanches swept four 
hundred soldiers over a cliff, and they all 
escaped without serious injury. 

The army of General Macdonald, in his 
celebrated passage of the Spliigen in Decem- 
ber, 1800, suffered severely from these dust- 
avalanches. A troup of horse was completely 
cut through while on the march ; and thirty 
dragoons were precipitated into a gulf below 
the road, where they all perished. And again, 
some days afterwards, in descending a gorge, 
the columns were repeatedly severed by ava- 
lanches ; and more than one hundred soldiers, 
with a number of horses and mules, were lost. 
On one of these occasions the drummer of a 
regiment was carried away; and it is said 
that they heard him beating his drum in the 
gorge below, in the hope that his comrades 
would come to his rescue. Help, however, 
was out of the question. The sounds grad- 
ually became fainter, and the poor lad must 
have perished in the cold. 

The ground-avalanches are different from 
those just described, consisting of dense and 
almost solid masses of snow which have lain 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 93 

for a long time exposed to atmospheric influ- 
ences. They are much heavier than the dust- 
avalanches, and therefore more destructive ; so 
that the inhabitants take great pains to pro- 
tect themselves from this source of clanger. 
Thickly planted trees are the best protection 
against avalanches of every kind. Snow which 
has fallen in a wood cannot very well shift 
its place ; and when masses of snow descend 
from the slopes above, they are unable to break 
through so strong a barrier. Small shrubs, such 
as rhododendrons, or even heaths and meadow- 
grass, are often sufficient to prevent the slip- 
ping of the snow ; and therefore it is very im- 
prudent not to allow them to grow freely on 
mountain-slopes. But it is still more danger- 
ous to cut down protecting forests, or even to 
do so partly. This was illustrated by 'the case 
of a mountain in the Pyrenees, in the lofty 
valley of Neste ; after it had been partially 
cleared of trees, a tremendous avalanche fell 
down in 1846, and in its fall swept away 
more than fifteen thousand fir-trees. 

The Swiss records tell us what a terrible 
scourge the avalanche can be in villages which 
in summer-time appear such calm and happy 



94 The Story of the Hills. 

.scenes of pastoral life. M. Joanne, in the in- 
troduction to his valuable " Itineraire cle la 
Suisse " l gives a list of twelve of the most 
destructive avalanches that have fallen in 
Switzerland. In old days they seem to have 
been as great a source of clanger as in mod- 
ern times. Thus we find that in the year 
1500, a caravan of six hundred persons was 
swept away in crossing the Great St. Bernard ; 
three hundred were buried under an ava- 
lanche which fell from Monte Cassedra (Ticino). 
Another one in the year 1720, at Oberges- 
telen, in the Rhone Valley, destroyed one hun- 
dred and twenty cottages, four hundred head 
of cattle, and eighty-eight persons. The bodies 
were buried in a large pit in the village ceme- 
tery, on the wall of which was engraved the 
following pathetic inscription : " God, what 
sorrow ! — eighty-eight in a single grave ! " 
("Gott, welche Trauer ! — acht und achtzig 
in einem Grab ! ") 

It is a curious fact that animals have a 
wonderful power of anticipating coming catas- 
trophes. When human beings are unaware of 
danger, they are often warned by the behaviour 

1 Conservateur Suisse, xlvi. p. 478, vol. xii. 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 95 

of animals. Country people sometimes say 
that they can tell from the birds when the 
weather is about to change ; and there is little 
doubt but that sea-gulls come inland before 
rough, stormy weather. But in the case of 
earthquakes the behaviour of birds, beasts, and 
even fishes is very striking. It is said that 
before an earthquake rats, mice, moles, lizards, 
and serpents frequently come out of their 
holes, and hasten hither and thither as if 
smitten with terror. At Naples, it is said that 
the ants quitted their underground passages 
some hours before the earthquake of July 26, 
1805; that grasshoppers crossed the town in 
order to reach the coast; and that the fish ap- 
proached the shore in shoals. Avalanches, it 
is well known, produce tremors similar to those 
due to slight earthquake shocks ; and there are 
many stories in Switzerland of the behaviour 
of animals just before the catastrophe takes 
place. Berlepsch relates that a pack-horse on 
the Scaletta Pass, which was always most 
steady, became restive when an avalanche was 
coming ; so that he was valuable to his 
owners in bad weather. One day, when near 
the summit of the pass, he suddenly stopped. 



96 The Story of the Hills. 

They foolishly took no notice of his warning 
this time ; but lie presently darted off at full 
speed. In a few seconds the avalanche came 
and buried the whole party. 

If these stories can be relied upon, it would 
seem that animals are either more sensitive to 
very slight tremors of the earth, or else that 
they are more on the lookout than human 
beings. Perhaps North American Indians have 
learned from animals in this respect, for they 
can tell of a coming enemy on the march 
by putting their ears to the ground and 
listening. 

But there are worse dangers in the mountains 
than falls of snow and ice, for sometimes masses 
of rock come hurtling down, or worse still, the 
whole side of a mountain gives way and spreads 
ruin far and wide. Perpendicular or overhang- 
ing rocks, which seem securely fastened, suddenly 
become detached and rush headlong down the 
mountain-side. In their rapid fall, they raise a 
cloud of dust like the ashes vomited forth by a 
volcano ; a horrible darkness is spread over a 
once pleasant valley ; and the unfortunate in- 
habitants, unable to see what is taking place, are 
only aware of the trembling of the ground, and 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 97 

the crashing din of the rocks as they strike 
together and shatter one another in pieces. 
When the cloud of dust is cleared away, nothing 
but heaps of stones and rubbish are to be seen 
where pastures once grew, or the peasant 
ploughed his acres in peace. The stream flow- 
ing down the valley is obstructed in its course, 
and changed into a muddy lake ; the rampart of 
rocks from which some debris still comes crum- 
bling down has lost its old form ; the sharpened 
edges point out the denuded cliff from which a 
large part of the mountain has broken away. In 
the Pyrenees, Alps, and other important ranges 
there are but few valleys where one cannot see 
the confused heaps of fallen rocks. 

Many of these catastrophes, known as the 
" Bergfall," have been recorded ; and the rec- 
ords tell of the fearful havoc and destruction to 
life and property due to this cause. In Italy 
the ancient Roman town of Velleja was buried, 
about the fourth century, by the downfall of the 
mountain of Rovinazzo ; and the large quantity 
of bones and coins that have been found proves 
that the fall was so sudden that the inhabitants 
had no time to escape. 

Taurentum, another Roman town, situated, it 

7 



98 The Story of the Hills. 

is said, on the banks of Lake Geneva, at the 
base of one of the spurs of the Dent d'Oche, was 
completely crushed in a. d. 563 by a downfall 
of rocks. The sloping heap of debris thus 
formed may still be seen advancing like a head- 
land into the waters of the lake. A terrible 
flood -wave, produced by the deluge of stones, 
reached the opposite shores of the lake and 
swept away all the inhabitants. Every town 
and village on the banks, from Morges to Vevay, 
was demolished, and they did not begin the 
work of rebuilding till the following century. 
Some say, however, that the disaster was caused 
by a landslip which fell from the Grammont or 
Derochiaz across the valley of the Rhone, just 
above the spot where it flows into the Lake of 
Geneva. Hundreds of such falls have taken 
place within the Alps and neighbouring moun- 
tains within historic times. 

Two out of the five peaks of the Diablerets 
fell clown, one in 1714 and the other in 1749, 
covering the pastures with a thick layer of stones 
and earth more than three hundred feet thick, 
and by obstructing the course of the stream of 
Lizerne, formed the three lakes of Derborence. 
In like manner the Bernina, the Dent du Midi, 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 99 

the Dent de May en, and the Righi have over- 
spread with ruin vast tracts of cultivated land. 
In Switzerland the most noted Bergfalls are 
those from the Diablerets and the Rossbere. 
The former mountain is a long flattish ridge 
with several small peaks, overhanging very 
steep walls of rock on either side. These walls 
are composed of alternating beds of limestone 
and shale. Hence it is easily perceived that we 
have here conditions favourable for landslips, 
because if anything weakens one of these beds 
of shale the overlying mass might be inclined 
to break away. The fall in the year 1714, 
already referred to, was a very destructive 
one. 

" For two whole days previously loud groaning had 
been heard to issue from the mountain, as though 
some imprisoned spirit were struggling to release him- 
self, like Typhoeus from under Etna ; then a vast 
fragment of the upper part of the mountain broke 
suddenly away and thundered down the precipices into 
the valley beneath. In a few minutes fifty-five chalets, 
with sixteen men and many head of cattle, were buried 
for ever under the ruins. One remarkable escape has 
indeed been recorded, perhaps the most marvellous 
ever known. A solitary herdsman from the village of 
A vent occupied one of the chalets which were buried 



100 The Story of the Hills. 

under the fallen mass. Not a trace of it remained ; 
his friends in the valley below returned from their un- 
successful search, and mourned him as dead. He was, 
however, still among the living ; a huge rock had 
fallen in such a manner as to protect the roof of his 
chalet, which, as is often the case, rested against a 
cliff. Above this, stones and earth had accumulated, 
and the man was buried alive. Death would soon have 
released him from his imprisonment, had not a little 
rill of water forced its way through the debris and 
trickled into the chalet. Supported by this and by his 
store of cheese, he lived three months, labouring all 
the while incessantly to escape. Shortly before 
Christmas he succeeded, after almost incredible toil, 
in once more looking on the light of day, which his 
dazzled eyes, so long accustomed to the murky dark- 
ness below, for a while could scarcely support. He 
hastened down to his home in A vent, and knocked at 
his own door ; pale and haggard, he scarcely seemed a 
being of this world. His relations would not believe 
that one so long lost could yet be alive, and the door 
was shut in his face. He turned to a friend's house ; 
no better welcome awaited him. Terror seized upon 
the village ; the priest was summoned to exorcise the 
supposed demon ; and it was not till he came that the 
unfortunate man could persuade them that he was no 
spectre, but flesh and blood." ] 

The valley is still a wild scene of desolation, 

1 Bonne v 



Sunshine and Storm on the Mountains. 101 

owing to the enormous masses of stones of 
every shape and size with which its bed is 
filled. 

In September of the year 1806, the second 
fall of the mountain Rossberg took place, after 
a wet summer. It is underlaid by beds of clay 
which, when water penetrates, are apt to give 
way. The part which fell was about three miles 
long and 350 yards wide and 33 yards thick. 
In five minutes one of the most fertile valleys 
in Switzerland was changed to a stony desert. 
Three whole villages, six churches, 120 houses, 
200 stables or chalets, 225 head of cattle, and 
much land were buried under the ruins of the 
Rossberg ; 484 persons lost their lives. Some 
remarkable escapes are recorded. 

In the year 1618 the downfall of Monte 
Conto buried 2,400 inhabitants of the village 
of Pleurs, near Chiavenna. Excavation among 
the ruins was subsequently attempted, but a 
few mangled corpses and a church-bell were 
all that could be reached. 

Geologically these phenomena, appalling as 
they are from the human point of view, pos- 
sess a certain interest, and their effects deserve 
to be studied. 



102 The Story of the Hills. 

There is yet another danger to which dwellers 
in mountains are occasionally exposed ; namely, 
the earthquake. It seems to be an established 
fact that earthquake shocks are more frequent in 
mountainous than in flat countries. The origin 
of these dangerous disturbances of the earth's 
crust has not yet been fully explained. They 
are probably caused in various ways; and it is 
very likely that the upheaval of mountain- 
chains is one of the causes at work. Earth- 
quakes have for many years been carefully 
studied by scientific men, and some valuable 
discoveries have been made. Thus we find 
that they are more frequent in winter than 
summer, and also happen more often by night 
than by day. Day and night are like summer 
and winter on a small scale, and so we need 
not be surprised at this discovery. Some have 
maintained that there is a connection between 
earthquakes and the position of the moon ; 
while others consider that the state of the 
atmosphere also exerts an influence, and that 
earthquakes are connected with rainy seasons, 
storms, etc. Earthquakes are very often clue 
to volcanic eruptions, but this is not always 
the case (see chapter vi., page 199). 



CHAPTER IV. 

MOUNTAIN PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 

The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and so are the 
stony rocks for the conies. — Psalm civ. 18. 

There must be few people who have neither 
seen nor heard of the beauty and exquisite 
colours of Alpine 1 flowers. They are first seen 
on the fringes of the stately woods above the 
cultivated land ; then in multitudes on the 
sloping pastures with which many mountain- 
chains are robed, brightening the verdure with 
innumerable colours ; and higher up, where 
neither grass nor loose herbage can exist, 
among the slopes of shattered fragments which 
roll down from the mountain-tops, — nay, even 
amidst the glaciers, — they gladden the eye of 
the traveller and seem to plead sweetly with 

1 The word " Alpine " is used in a general sense to denote 
the vegetation that grows naturally on the most elevated regions 
of the earth ; that is, on all high mountains, whether they rise up 
in hot tropical plains or in cooler northern pastures. 



104 The Story of the Hills. 

the spirits of destruction. Alpine plants fringe 
the vast hills of snow and ice of the high hills, 
and sometimes have scarcely time to flower 
and ripen a few seeds before being again cov- 
ered by their snowy bed. When the season is 
unfavourable, numbers of them remain under 
the snow for more than a year ; and here they 
safely rest, unharmed by the alternations of 
frost and biting winds, with moist and spring- 
like clays. They possess the great charm of 
endless variety of form and colour, and represent 
widely separated divisions of the vegetable 
kingdom ; but they are all small and low-grow- 
ing compared to their relatives grown in the 
plains, where the soil is richer and the climate 
milder. Among them are tiny orchids quite 
as interesting in their way as those from the 
tropics ; liliputian trees, and a tree-like moss 
(Lycopodium dendroideum) branching into an 
erect little pyramid as if in imitation of a 
mountain pine ; ferns that peep cautiously from 
narrow rocky crevices as if clinging to the rock 
for shelter from the cold blasts ; bulbous plants, 
from lilies to bluebells ; evergreen shrubs, per- 
fect in leaf and blossom and fruit, yet so small 
that one's hat will cover them ; exquisite creep- 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 105 

ing plants spreading freely along the ground, 
and when they creep over the brows of rocks 
or stones, draping them with curtains of colour 
as lovely as those we see in the forests ; num- 
berless minute plants scarcely larger than 
mosses, mantling the earth with fresh green 
carpets in the midst of winter ; succulent plants 
in endless variety ; and lastly the ferns, mosses, 
and lichens which are such an endless source 
of pleasure and delight to the traveller. In 
short, Alpine vegetation presents us with nearly 
every type of plant life of northern and tem- 
perate climes, chastened in tone and diminished 
in size. 

It is not difficult to account for the small 
size of these plants ; for in the first place we 
cannot expect a large or luxuriant growth where 
the air is cold, the soil scanty, and the light 
of the sun often obscured by clouds, and where 
the changes of temperature are rapid, — which 
is very unfavourable to most plants. Again, 
in the close struggle for existence which takes 
place on the plains and low tree-clad hills, the 
smaller forms of plant life are often overrun 
by trees, trailing plants, bushes, and vigorous 
herbs ; but where these cannot find a home, 



106 The Story of the Hills. 

owing to the severity of the winter and other 
causes, the little Alpine plants, covered up by 
snow in the winter, can thrive abundantly. And 
lastly, like the older and conquered races of 
men who have been driven to the hills (see chap, i., 
p. 28) and find shelter there, so there are both 
plants and animals living in the mountains which 
man will not suffer to live in the plain where 
he grows his crops, pastures his cattle, or builds 
his cities. We would also venture to suggest 
that possibly some plants have been ousted 
from plains by newer and more aggressive 
types, which came and took their place. If so, 
vegetable life would afford an illustration of 
a process which has so often taken place in 
human history. This is only a speculation, but 
still it might be worth following up. If Alpine 
plants, or any considerable number of them, 
could be shown to belong to more ancient types, 
such as nourished in the later geological periods, 
that would afford some evidence in favour of 
the idea. Whether this is so or not, plant life 
on the mountains is almost entirely protected 
from the destroying hands of men with their 
ploughs and scythes, as well as from many 
grazing animals. As Mr. Ruskin quaintly says : 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 107 

" The flowers which on the arable plain fell before 
the plough now find out for themselves unapproach- 
able places, where year by year they gather into 
happier fellowship and fear no evil." 

It is clear that the climate of a mountainous 
region determines the character of the vegetation. 
Now, the climate will be different in different 
parts of a mountain-range, and will depend upon 
the height above the sea and other causes. 1 Some 
writers upon this subject have attached too much 
importance to absolute height above the sea, as 
though this were the only cause at work. It is 
a very important cause, no doubt, but there are 
others which also have a great influence, such as 
the position of each locality with respect to the 
great mountain masses, the local conditions of 
exposure to the sun and protection from cold 
winds, or the reverse. However, in spite of 
local irregularities there are in the Alps certain 
broad zones or belts of vegetation which may 
be briefly described as follows : — 

1. The Olive region. — This region curiously 
illustrates what has just been said about other 
causes besides height influencing the climate 

1 The following remarks are largely taken from the Introduc- 
tion to Ball's well-known " Alpine Guide." 



108 The Story of the Hills. 

and vegetation. For along the southern base 
of the Alps, the lower slopes and the mouths 
of the valleys have a decidedly warmer climate 
than the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy. 
Thus, while the winter climate of Milan is 
colder than that of Edinburgh, the olive can 
ripen its fruit along the skirts of the moun- 
tain region, and penetrates to a certain dis- 
tance towards the interior of the chain along 
the lakes and the wider valleys of the Southern 
Alps. Even up the shores of the Lake of Garda, 
where the evergreen oak grows, the olive has 
become wild. The milder climate of the Bor- 
romean Islands, and some points on the shores 
of the Lago Maggiore, will permit many plants 
of the warmer temperate zone to grow ; while at 
a distance of a few miles, and close to the shores 
of the same lake, but in positions exposed to the 
cold winds from the Alps, plants of the Alpine 
region grow freely, and no delicate perennials 
can survive the winter. The olive has been 
known to resist a temperature of about 16° F. 
(or 16° below the freezing point of water), but is 
generally destroyed by a less degree of cold. It 
can only be successfully cultivated where the 
winter frosts are neither long nor severe, where 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 109 

the mean temperature of winter does not fall 
below 42° F., and a heat of 75° F. during the 
day is continued through four or five months of 
the summer and autumn. 

2. The Vine region. — The vine, being more 
tolerant of cold than the olive, can grow at 
a higher level ; and so the next zone of vege- 
tation in the Alps may be called " the Vine 
region." But to give tolerable wine it re- 
quires at the season of ripening of the 
grape almost as much warmth as the olive 
needs. Vines can grow in the deeper val- 
leys throughout a great part of the Alpine 
chain, and in favourable situations up to a 
considerable height on their northern slopes. 
On the south side, although the limit of per- 
petual snow is lower, the vine often reaches 
near to the foot of the greater peaks. But 
the fitness of a particular spot for the pro- 
duction of wine depends far more on the 
direction of the valley and of the prevail- 
ing winds than on the height. And so it 
happens that in the Canton Valais, the Val- 
ley of the Arc in Savoy, and some others on 
the north side of the dividing range, tolerable 
wine is made at a higher level than in the val- 



110 The Story of the Hills. 

leys of Lornbardy, whose direction allows the 
free passage of the keen northern blasts. It is 
a curious fact that in the Alps the vine often re- 
sists a winter temperature which would kill it 
down to the roots in the low country ; and we 
must explain it by the protection of the deep 
winter snow. Along with the vine many species 
of wild plants, especially annuals, characteristic 
of the flora of the south of Europe, show them- 
selves in the valleys of the Alps. 

3. The Mountain region, or region of deciduous 
trees. — Many writers take the growth of corn 
as the characteristic of the colder temperate 
zone, corresponding to what has been called 
the mountain region of the Alps. But so 
many varieties, all with different require- 
ments, are in cultivation, that it is impos- 
sible to take the growth of cereals in general 
as marking clearly any natural division of the 
surface. A more natural limit is marked by 
the presence of deciduous trees (trees which 
shed their leaves). Although the oak, beech, 
and ash do not exactly reach the same height, 
and are not often seen growing side by side in 
the Alps, yet their upper limit marks pretty 
accurately the transition from a temperate to 



Mountain Plants and Animals. Ill 

a colder climate that is shown by a general 
change in the wild, herbaceous vegetation. 
The lower limit of this zone is too irregular 
to be exactly denned, but its upper boundary 
is about 4,000 feet on the cold north side of the 
Alps, and often rises to 5,500 feet on the south- 
ern slopes, which of course get more sunshine 
and warmth. The climate of this region is fa- 
vourable to the growth of such trees as the oak, 
beech, and ash, but it does not follow that we 
should see them there in any great numbers at 
the present time ; for it is probable that at a 
very early date they were extensively destroyed 
for building purposes, and to clear space for mea- 
dow and pasture land, so that with the exception 
of the beech forests of the Austrian Alps, there 
is scarcely a considerable wood of deciduous trees 
to be seen anywhere in the chain. In many dis- 
tricts where the population is not too dense, the 
pine and Scotch fir have taken the place of the 
oak and beech, mainly because the young plants 
are not so eagerly attacked by goats, the great 
destroyers of trees. 

4. The region of Coniferous trees. — Botani- 
cally this region is best distinguished by the 
prevalence of coniferous trees, forming vast 



112 The Story of the Hills. 

forests, which if not kept down by man (and by 
goats) would cover the slopes of the Alps. The 
prevailing species are the common fir and the 
silver fir. In districts where granite abounds, 
the larch flourishes and reaches a greater size 
than any other tree. Less common are the 
Scotch fir and the arolla, or Siberian fir. In the 
Eastern Alps the dwarf pine becomes conspicu- 
ous, forming a distinct zone on the higher moun- 
tains above the level of other firs. The pine 
forests play a most important part in the natural 
economy of the Alps ; and their preservation is a 
matter of very great importance to the future 
inhabitants. But in some places they have been 
considerably diminished by cutting. This has 
especially happened in the neighbourhood of 
mines ; and in consequence the people of the un- 
frequented communes have become so alive to 
this that some jealousy is felt of strangers 
wandering among the mountains, lest they 
should discover metals and cause the destruction 
of the woods. Their fears are not unreasonable ; 
for the forests, besides exerting a good deal of 
influence on rainfall and climate, form natural de- 
fences against the rush of the spring avalanches 
(see chapter iii„ page 93). It is recorded that after 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 113 

the war of 1799, in which many of those near the 
St. Gothard Pass were destroyed, the neighbour- 
ing villages suffered terribly from this scourge. 
Hence the laws do not allow of timber being cut 
in certain forests called " Bannwalde ; " and in 
most places the right of felling trees is strictly 
regulated, and the woods are under the inspec- 
tion of officials. 

In spots high up among the mountains, 
to which access is difficult, the timber is con- 
verted into charcoal, which is then brought 
down in sacks by horses and mules. There are 
two ways in which timber is conveyed down 
from the forest : either it is cut up into logs some 
five feet long, and thrown into a neighbouring 
torrent, which brings it down over cliff and 
gorge to the valley below ; or else trough- 
like slides are constructed along the mountain- 
sides, down which the trunks themselves are 
launched. 

It is this region of coniferous trees which 
mainly determines the manner of life of the 
population of the Alps. In the month of May 
the horned cattle, having been fed in houses 
during the winter (as they are in the Scotch 
Highlands, where the cowsheds are called 



114 The Story oj the Hills. 

" byres " ), are led up to the lower pastures. The 
lower chalets, occupied in May and part of June, 
generally stand at about the upper limit of the 
mountain region. Towards the middle or end 
of June the cattle are moved up to the chief pas- 
tures, towards the upper part of the region of 
coniferous trees, where they usually remain for 
the next two or three months. But there are 
some available pastures still higher up, and 
hither some of the cattle are sent for a month 
or more. 

5. The Alpine region. — This is the zone of 
vegetation extending from the upper limit of 
trees to where permanent masses of snow first 
make their appearance ; so that where the trees 
cease, the peculiar Alpine plants begin ; but we 
still find shrubs, such as the common rhodo- 
dendron, Alpine willow, and the common juni- 
per, which extend up to, and the latter even 
beyond, the level of perpetual snow. The 
limits of this interesting and delightful botan- 
ical region may be fixed between 6,000 and 
8,000 feet above the sea, and at least 1,000 
feet higher on the south slopes of the Alps, 
which get more sunshine. It is used to some 
extent for pasture ; and in Piedmont it is not 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 115 

uncommon to find chalets at the height of 
8,500 feet, and vegetation often extends freely 
up to 9,500 feet. Here and there, at levels 
below this zone, many Alpine species may be 
found, either transported by accident from their 
natural home, or finding a permanent refuge 
in some cool spot sheltered from the sun, and 
moistened by streamlets descending from the 
snow region. But it is chiefly here that those 
delightful flowers grow which make the Alps 
like a great flower-garden, — great anemones, 
white and sulphur-coloured ; gentians of the 
deepest blue, like the sky overhead ; campan- 
ulas, geums, Alpine solanellas, and forget-me- 
nots ; asters, ox-eyed daisies, pale pink primulas, 
purple heartsease, edelweiss, saxifrages, yellow 
poppies, Alpine toad-flax, monkshood, potentilla, 
and others too numerous to mention. Says 
Professor Bonney, — 

" Who cannot recall many a happy hour spent in 
rambling from cluster to cluster on the side of some 
great Alp ? — the scent of sweet herbage or of sweeter 
daphne perfuming the invigorating air, the melody of 
the cattle-bells borne up from some far-off pasture, 
while the great blue vault of heaven above seems re- 
flected in the gentian clusters at his feet. The love 



116 The Story of the Hills. 

of flowers seems natural to almost every human being, 
however forlorn his life may have been, however far it 
may have missed its appointed mark. It may well be 
so ; they at least are fresh and untainted from their 
Maker's hand ; the cry of ' Nature red in tooth and 
claw ' scarce breaks their calm repose. Side by side 
they flourish without strife ; none ' letteth or hindereth 
another,' yet so tender and delicate, doomed to fade 
all too soon, a touch of sadness is ever present to give 
a deeper pathos to our love." 

6. The Glacial region. — This comprehends all 
that portion of the Alps that rises above the 
limit of perpetual snow. But a word of ex- 
planation is necessary. The highest parts of 
the Alps are not covered by one continuous 
sheet of snow ; otherwise we should never see 
any peaks or crags there. Some are too steep 
for the snow to rest upon them, and therefore 
remain bare at heights much greater than the 
so-called " limit of perpetual snow," and that 
limit varies considerably. Still this term has 
a definite meaning when rightly understood. 
Leaving; out of account masses of snow that 
accumulate in hollows shaded from the sun, 
the " snow-line " is fairly even, so that on 
viewing an Alpine range from a distance, the 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 117 

larger patches and fields of snow on adjoining 
mountains, with the same aspect, are seen to 
maintain a pretty constant level. 

Vegetation becomes scarce in this region, not, 
as commonly supposed, because Alpine plants do 
not here find the necessary conditions for growth, 
but simply for want of soil. The intense heat of 
the direct rays of the sun (see chapter iii., pages 
76-77) compensates for the cold of the night ; 
and it is probable that the greater allowance 
of light also stimulates vegetable life. But all 
the more level parts are covered with ice or 
snow ; and the higher we ascend, the less the 
surface remains bare, with the exception of the 
projecting rocks which usually undergo rapid 
destruction and breaking up from the freezing 
of whatever water finds its way into their 
fissures. 

Nevertheless, many species of flowering plants 
have been found even at the height of eleven 
thousand feet. 

It is in this region that plants are found 
whose true home is in the arctic regions (see 
chapter ii., pages 64-65). 

For the sake of those who love ferns, lyco- 
pods, and other cryptogamic or flowerless plants, 



118 The Story of the Hills. 

a few words may be said here. Of the poly- 
podies, the beech fern and oak fern are generally 
common, so is the limestone polypody in places 
where limestone occurs. Another species (P. 
alpestre) very like the lady fern grows plenti- 
fully in many places. The parsley fern, familiar 
to the botanist in Wales and other parts of Great 
Britain, is common, especially on the crystalline 
rocks, and ascends to above seven thousand feet. 
The holly fern is perhaps the most characteristic 
one of the higher Alps. It is abundant in almost 
every district from the Viso to the Tyrol, ranging 
from about five thousand feet to nearly eight 
thousand feet. The finest specimens are to be 
found in the limestone districts. Nestling down 
in little channels worn out of the rock, it shoots 
out great fronds, often more than eighteen inches 
long, which are giants compared to the stunted 
specimens seen on rockwork in English gardens. 

Asplenium septentrionale is very common in 
most of the districts where crystalline rocks 
abound. The hart's tongue is hardly to be 
called a mountain fern. The common brake is 
confined to the lower slopes. 

Cistopterisfragillis&ri& C. dentata are common, 
and the more delicate C. Alpina is not rare. 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 119 

The noble Osmunda regalis keeps to the warmer 
valleys. The moonwort abounds in the upper 
pastures. 

The club-mosses (Lycojpodium), which are 
found in Great Britain, are common in most 
parts of the Alps, especially the L. selago, which 
grows almost up to the verge of the snows. 
Lower clown is the delicate L. velveticum, which 
creeps among the damp mosses under the shade 
of the forest. Many of the smaller species stain 
with spots of crimson, orange, and purple the 
rocks among the snowfields and glaciers, and 
gain the summits of peaks more than eighteen 
thousand feet above the sea, reaching even to 
the highest rocks in the Alpine chain. For the 
sake of readers who are not familiar with that 
wonderful book, " Modern Painters," we will 
quote some exquisite passages on lichens and 
mosses, full of beautiful thoughts : — 

" We have found beauty in the tree yielding fruit 
and in the herb yielding seed. How of the herb 
yielding no seed, — the fruitless, flowerless 1 lichen 
of the rock ? 

" Lichens and mosses (though these last in their 
luxuriance are deep and rich as herbage, yet both for 
1 Flowerless in the ordinary, not the botanical sense. 



120 The Story of the Hills. 

the most part humblest of the green things that live), 
— how of these ? Meek creatures ! — the first mercy 
of the earth, veiling with trusted softness its dintless 
rocks, creatures full of pity, covering with strange and 
tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin, laying 
quiet finger on the trembling stones to teach them 
rest. No words that 1 know of will say what these 
mosses are ; none are delicate enough, none perfect 
enough, none rich enough. How is one to tell of the 
rounded bosses of furred and beaming green ; the 
starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if 
the Rock Spirits could spin porphyry as we do grass ; 
the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, 
lustrous, arborescent, burnished through every fibre 
into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken 
change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for 
simplest, sweetest offices of grace ? They will not be 
gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love token; 
but of these the wild bird will make its nest and the 
wearied child his pillow. 

"And as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last 
gift to us. When all other service is vain, from plant 
and tree the soft mosses and grey lichen take up 
their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blos- 
soms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts 
for a time, but these do service for ever. Tree for the 
builder's yard — flowers for the bride's chamber — 
corn for the granary — moss for the grave. 

" Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 121 

are the most honoured of the earth-children ; unfading 
as motionless, the worm frets them not and the autumn 
wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch 
in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, 
constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark, 
eternal tapestries of the hills ; to them, slow-pencilled, 
iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. 
Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they 
share also its endurance ; and while the winds of de- 
parting spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom 
like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched 
meadow the drooping of its cowslip, — gold far above, 
among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, 
star-like, on the stone ; and the gathering orange-stain 
upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the 
sunsets of a thousand years." 

Alpine and arctic plants are met with in 
Great Britain, but Scotland has a much more 
extensive arctic- Alpine flora than England, 
Wales, or Ireland, the reason being the greater 
altitude of its mountains. The combined flora 
of the United Kingdom contains only ninety- 
one species of arctic- Alpine plants, and of these 
eighty-eight — that is, all but three — are na- 
tives of Scotland. Of these three the first is a 
gentian (Genticma verna), which is to be found 
on the hills of West Yorkshire, Durham, 



122 The Story of the Hills. 

Westmoreland, and other parts. It comes from 
the Alps. The second is Lloydia serotina, — a 
small bnlbous plant with white flowers, which 
is found on the hills of Carnarvonshire, in 
Wales. The third, well known in English 
gardens, is London pride (Saxifraga innbrosa), 
which is only to be found on the southwest 
Irish hills. 

Of the ninety-one arctic- Alpine species, just 
about half are also natives of England and 
Wales, but only twenty-five belong to Ireland. 
If we examine the lists of the flora of Arctic 
Europe we find that all these, except about 
six, are found in arctic regions ; and if we 
travel farther north till we come actually to 
polar regions, we find nearly fifty of these 
species growing there near the sea-level. The 
Grampian Mountains are the chief centre of 
the Scottish arctic-Alpine flora. The two prin- 
cipal localities for such flowers in that range 
are the Breadalbane Mountains in Perthshire, 
and the Csenlochan and Clova Mountains of 
Forfarshire. There are also a goodly number 
on the mountains of the Braemar district. 

The history of the arctic- Alpine flora of Eu- 
rope is a very interesting one. These plants, 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 123 

whose true home is in the arctic regions, liv- 
ing high up on the mountains of Europe, give 
unmistakable evidence of a time, very far 
back, when Northern Europe was overrun by 
glaciers and snowfields so as to resemble in 
appearance and in climate the Greenland of 
the present day. This period is known to 
geologists as the " Great Ice Age." The mo- 
raines of glaciers, ice- worn rock surfaces, and 
other unmistakable signs may be well seen in 
many parts of Great Britain. How long ago 
this took place we cannot say ; but judging 
from the considerable changes in geography 
which have undoubtedly taken place since 
then, we must conclude that many thousands 
of years, perhaps two hundred thousand, have 
intervened between this period and the pres- 
ent time. 

When arctic conditions prevailed over this 
wide area, the plants and animals which now 
live in arctic latitudes flourished in Great 
Britain ; but as the climate gradually became 
more genial, and the snow and ice melted, the 
plants and animals mostly retreated to their 
northern home. A certain number doubtless 
became extinct ; but others took to the high- 



124 The Story of the Hills. 

est parts of the mountains, where snow and 
ice abound ; and there they remain to the 
present day, separated from their fellows, but 
still enjoying the kind of climate to which 
they have always been accustomed, and testi- 
fying to the wonderful changes which have 
taken place since the mammoth, whose bones 
are found embedded in our river-gravels, wan- 
dered over the plains of Northern Europe. 

Animal Life. 

The rocky fastnesses of the Alps still afford a 
home to some of the larger wild animals which 
in other parts of Europe have gradually dis- 
appeared with the advance of civilisation. 
During the latter part of the " Stone Age," long 
before history was written, when men used 
axes, hammers, arrow-heads, and other imple- 
ments of stone, instead of bronze or iron, Switz- 
erland was inhabited by animals which are 
not to be seen now. The gigantic urus (Bos 
'primigenius), which flourished in the forests 
of the interior during this prehistoric human 
period, and gave its name to the canton of 
Uri, has become extinct. The marsh hog was 
living during the period of the Swiss lake- 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 125 

dwellers. These people made their houses on 
piles driven in near the shore, and were ac- 
quainted with the use of bronze, and therefore 
later than the men of the " Stone Age." The 
remains of these strange dwelling-places have 
been discovered in several places, as well as 
many articles of daily use. The marsh hog has 
disappeared ; and its place is taken by the wild 
boar and domestic hog, which afford sport and 
food to the present population. But taking 
Switzerland as it now is, we will say a few 
words about the more interesting forms of ani- 
mal life dwelling in the Alps, beginning with 
those which are highest in the animal kingdom. 
Chief among these is the brown bear, still occa- 
sionally found, but it is exceedingly rare, except 
in the Grisons and in the districts of the Tyrol 
and Italy bordering on the canton, where it still 
carries on its ravages. 1 Some also believe that it 
still lingers in the rocky fastnesses of the Jura 
Mountains, to the east of the Alps. There is 
properly only one species of bear in Switzerland, 
but the hunters generally speak of three, — the 
great black, the great grey, and the small 

1 We are again indebted to Professor Bonney's " Alpine Re- 
gions of Switzerland " for the information here given. 



126 The Story of the Hills. 

brown. The second of these is merely an ac- 
cidental variety of the first ; but between the 
grey and the small brown bears there is a good 
deal of difference. They assert that the black 
bear is not only considerably larger than the 
brown, but is also different in its habits. It is 
less ferocious and prefers a vegetable diet, — 
feeding on herbs, corn, and vegetables, with the 
roots and branches of trees. It has a way of 
plundering bee-hives and also ants' nests ; it 
delights in strawberries and all kinds of fruit, 
plundering the orchards, and even making raids 
on the vineyards, but always retreating before 
dawn. As a rule it does not attack human 
beings The brown bear is much more formi- 
dable, prowling by night about the sheepfolds, 
and causing the sheep by their fright to fall 
down precipices. Goats, when alarmed, leap on 
the roofs of the chalets, and bleat, in order to 
arouse the shepherds ; so that when Bruin rears 
himself up against the wall he often meets his 
death. There are many stories on record of 
fierce fights for life between man and bear. The 
bear passes the winter in a torpid state, and 
eats little or nothing then. 

The wolf, though still lingering in several 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 127 

lonely parts of the Alps, is rapidly becoming rare. 
It is most frequent in the districts about the 
Engacline and in the Jura Mountains. Only in 
winter-time, when hard pressed by hunger, does 
it approach the haunts of man. It takes almost 
any kind of prey it can get, — foxes, hares, rats, 
mice, birds, lizards, frogs, and toads. Sheep 
and goats are its favourite prey. The wolf is an 
affectionate parent, and takes his turn in look- 
ing after the nurslings, which is a necessary 
precaution, as his friends and relations have a 
way of eating up the babies. 

The fox is common in many parts of the 
Alps, but not often seen by travellers. Instead 
of taking the trouble to burrow, he frequently 
manages by various cunning devices to take pos- 
session of a badger's hole. As Tschudi quaintly 
observes, " He has far too much imagination 
and poetic sentiment to like so monotonous and 
laborious an occupation as burrowing." Like 
the wolf, the mountain fox eats whatever he 
can catch, even beetles, flies, and bees. Those 
in the valleys live more luxuriously than their re- 
lations on the mountains, — plundering bee-hives 
and robbing orchards. As it was in Judaea in 
the days of Solomon, so it is now in Switzerland 



128 The Story of the Hilts. 

among the vineyards ; and a peasant might well 
say, " Take us the foxes, the little foxes that 
spoil the vineyards." 

The lynx is only occasionally found in the 
Alps, which is fortunate for the shepherds, for 
they can play terrible havoc with the sheep. 

Wild-cats still linger in the most unfrequented 
parts. Their fur is valuable, and the flesh is 
sometimes eaten. The badger is far from com- 
mon, though rarely seen by day. It is very cun- 
ning in avoiding traps, and so is generally either 
dug out of its hole drawn by dogs, or pulled out 
by a pole with nippers or a hook at the end. 
Passing on to less ferocious beasts, we find the 
otter common along the borders of rivers and 
lakes. The polecat, weasel, and stoat are often 
too abundant for keepers of poultry. The squir- 
rel is common enough in the forests, but varies 
greatly in colour It is doubtful whether the 
beaver still lingers by some lonely Alpine 
stream. It is last mentioned in a list of Swiss 
mammals, published in 1817, as found, though 
rarely, in some lonely spots. Rabbits are com- 
mon, but hares rather scarce ; of these there 
are, as in Scotland, two varieties, — the brown 
hare, which is seldom found at heights greater 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 129 

than four thousand to five thousand feet, and 
the blue hare, which ranges up to nine thousand 
feet. The latter changes colour : its fur in sum- 
mer is of a dull bluish-grey, and in winter it 
becomes perfectly white, and so affords a strik- 
ing illustration of " protective mimicry," for 
with snow lying on the ground it would be very 
hard to see the creature. 

The marmot is common in all the higher 
Alpine regions. These interesting little crea- 
tures are very watchful, and easily scent danger. 
When an intruder approaches, a sentinel marmot 
utters a long shrill whistle, which is often re- 
peated two or three times, and then they all 
make for their burrows ; but it is not easy to 
distinguish them from the grey rocks among 
which they live. The fur is a yellowish or 
brownish grey, with black on the head and 
face, and a little white on the muzzle ; the 
tail is short and bushy with a tipping of 
black. They have different quarters for sum- 
mer and winter. The summer burrows are in 
the belt of rough pasture between the upper 
limits of trees and the snows ; towards the 
end of autumn they come down to the pas- 
tures which the herdsmen have just abandoned 

9 



130 The Story of the Hills. 

and there make their winter burrows, which are 
much larger than the summer ones. Like rab- 
bits, they frequently make a bolt-hole, by which 
they may escape from an intruder. In winter 
the holes are plugged up, and the marmots, roll- 
ing themselves up in a ball, go to sleep for six 
months or more. Sometimes hunters dig them 
out ; but so soundly do they sleep that, according 
to De Saussure, they may often be taken out, 
placed in the game-bag, and carried home with- 
out being aroused. They wake up about April. 
The chamois, a very favourite subject with 
the wood-carvers, is the only member of the an- 
telope family in Western Europe ; it is found in 
almost every part of the Alps, but is now much 
rarer than it was formerly. A full-grown cham- 
ois in good condition weighs about sixty pounds. 
The hair is thick, and changes colour with the 
season, being a red yellowish-brown in summer 
and almost black in winter. The horns, which 
curve backwards, rise from the head above and 
between the eyes to a height which rarely ex- 
ceeds seven inches. When the kid is about three 
months old, the horns make their appearance, and 
at first are not nearly as hook-shaped as they 
afterwards become. When full-grown, it stands 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 131 

at the shoulder about two feet from the ground. 
The hind-legs being longer than the fore-legs, 
its gait is awkward on level ground, but they are 
admirably suited for mountain climbing. When 
at full speed, it can check itself almost instantly, 
and can spring with wonderful agility. Its hoofs 
are not well adapted for traversing the ice, and 
therefore it avoids glaciers as far as possible. 
Having a great fear of concealed crevasses, it is 
very shy of venturing on the upper part of a 
glacier ; and the tracks which it leaves in these 
places often show by their windings and sudden 
turnings that the animal has exercised great 
caution. And so travellers often use this as a 
useful clue to getting safely over a glacier. 
Its agility is something extraordinary. It can 
spring across chasms six or seven yards wide, 
and " with a sudden bound leap up the face 
of a perpendicular rock, and merely touching 
it with its hoofs, rebound again in an opposite 
direction to some higher crag, and thus escape 
from a spot where, without wings, egress seemed 
impossible. When reaching upwards on its hind- 
legs, the fore-legs resting on some higher spot, it 
is able to stretch to a considerable distance, and 
with a quick spring bring up its hind-quarters 



132 The Story of the Hills. 

to a level with the rest of the body, and with all 
four hoofs together, stand poised on a point of 
rock not broader than your hand." J The cham- 
ois feed on various mountain herbs, and on the 
buds and sprouts of the rhododendron and lat- 
schen (a pine). At night they couch among the 
broken rocks high upon the mountains, descend- 
ing at daybreak to pasture, and retreating, as the 
heat increases, towards their fastnesses. When 
winter comes, they are forced down to the higher 
forests, where they pick up a scanty subsistence 
from moss, dead leaves, and the fibrous lichen 
which hangs in long yellowish -grey tufts from 
the fir-trees and bears the name of " chamois- 
beard." While browsing on this, they sometimes 
get their horns hooked in a bough, and so, being 
unable to disentangle themselves, perish with 
hunger. The senses of hearing, smell, and sight 
are exceedingly acute ; so that the hunter must 
exercise all his craft to approach the animals. 
Pages might be filled with the hair-breadth 
escapes and .fearful accidents which have be- 
fallen hunters ; and yet they find the pursuit 
so fascinating that nothing; will induce them 
to abandon it. A young peasant told the 

1 Bonar on Chamois huntiivj; in Bavaria. 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 133 

famous De Saussure (the pioneer of Alpine 
explorers) that though his father and grand- 
father before him had met their death while 
out on the hunt, not even the offer of a fortune 
would tempt him to change his vocation. The 
bag which he carried with him he called his 
winding-sheet, because he felt sure he would 
never have any other. Two years afterwards 
he was found dead at the foot of a precipice. 

The bouquetin, or steinbock, once abundant 
throughout the greater part of the Alps, is now 
confined to certain parts where it is preserved 
by the King of Italy. De Saussure observes 
that in his time they had ceased to be found 
near Chamouni. Its whole build is remarkably 
strong, giving it quite a different appearance 
from the slender and graceful chamois. 

The roe, the fallow deer, and the red 
deer have, it is said, quite disappeared from 
the French and Swiss Alps, but all of them 
occur in the Bavarian and Austrian highlands. 
They frequent the forests which clothe the 
lower slopes, and do not often wander into 
the more rocky districts. The wild boar only 
now and then appears across the Rhine, al- 
though it is common in the Subalpine forests 



134 The Story of the Hills. 

farther east ; but we can hardly consider it a 
true Alpine quadruped. 

Passing on to the birds which frequent the 
Alps, we must first notice the bearded vulture, 
the lammergeier of the Germans, which once 
was common, but now only holds its own here 
and there in some lonely mountain fastness. 
Although preferring living prey to carrion, 
still in many ways it is closely allied to the 
true vulture. The upper part of the body is 
a greyish-brown hue, the under side white, 
tinged with reddish- brown. The nest, built on 
a high ledge of rock, consists of straw and 
fern, resting on sticks, on which are placed 
branches lined with moss and down. It is -a 
rare thing for the traveller to obtain a view 
of this monarch of the Alpine birds. Like the 
true vulture, its digestive powers are marvel- 
lous. According to Tschudi (" Les Alpes " ), the 
stomach of one of these birds was found to 
contain five fragments of a cow's rib, a mass 
of matted wool and hair, and the leg of a kid 
perfect from the knee downwards. Another 
had bolted a fox's rib fifteen inches long, as well 
as the brush, besides a number of bones and 
other indigestible parts of smaller animals, 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 135 

which were slowly being eaten away by the 
gastric juice. Sheep, goats, full-grown chamois, 
and smaller quadrupeds are eagerly devoured 
by this voracious bird- It is said to be bold 
enough to attack a man, when it finds him 
asleep or climbing in any dangerous place. 
Tschudi, in his book on the Alps, gives sev- 
eral instances of young children being carried 
off. One of these happened in the Bernese 
Oberland, as follows : Two peasants, making 
hay upon the pastures, had taken w 7 ith them 
their daughter Anna, a child about three years 
old. She quickly fell asleep on the turf near 
the hay chalet ; so the father put his broad - 
brimmed hat over her face, and went to work 
some little way off. On his return with a load 
of hay the child was gone ; and a brief search 
showed that she was nowhere near. Just at this 
time a peasant walking along a rough path in 
the glen was startled by the cry of a child, and 
going towards the place whence it came, saw a 
lammergeier rise from a neighbouring summit and 
hover for some time over a precipice. On climb- 
ing thither in all haste, he found the child lying 
on the very brink. She was but little injured ; 
some scratches were found on her hands and on 



136 The Story of the Hills. 

the left arm, by which she had been seized ; and 
she had been carried more than three quarters of 
a mile through the air. She lived to a good old 
age, and was always called the Geier-Anna, or 
Vulture's Annie, in memory of her escape. The 
particulars are inscribed in the registers of the 
parish of Habkeren. 

The golden eagle is not uncommon in most 
parts of the Alps, although travellers rarely 
obtain a near view. It is said to be very fond of 
hares, chasing and capturing them very cleverly 
As in Great Britain, it is accused of carrying off 
children ; but this is at least doubtful. The 
kite, buzzard and falcon are occasionally seen. 
There are at least ten species of owls, among 
which is the magnificent eagle-owl The raven 
is found in the lonelier glens, and is often 
tamed. Its thieving propensities are very 
amusing. Alpine birds of prey correspond very 
closely with British. The jackdaw is also com- 
mon. It would be impossible within our short 
limits to give a complete list of Swiss birds, but 
we may mention among others the nutcracker, 
the jay, the white-breasted swift, the wheatear, 
the common black redstart, the beautiful wall- 
creeper, and the snow-finch, which mounts to 



Mountain Plants and Animals. 137 

the borders of the snow Of game-birds we 
may mention the capercailze, the black grouse, 
and the hazel grouse, all of which are common 
in many of the forests The ptarmigan haunts 
the stony tracts on the borders of perpetual 
snow. In winter it turns white, and in summer 
greyish -brown, though a good deal of white 
remains. 

Pheasants and partridges cannot be said to be 
Alpine birds ; but the Greek partridge may be 
so considered. 

Numbers of the mountain streams and tarns 
contain excellent trout, and most of the larger 
lakes are well stocked with fish. Some of the 
trout of the Swiss and Italian lakes are of great 
size The pike frequently weigh twelve to 
fifteen pounds. 

Reptiles are not numerous. The common frog, 
which is said to be found as high as ten thousand 
feet above the sea, swarms in some parts of the 
Rhone Valley. Of true lizards, five species have 
been recognized. The blind- worm (which is not 
a snake), so common on many of our English 
heaths, is often met with. Among the true 
snakes we find the English ringed snake — quite 
harmless — and two adders. The common ad- 



138 The Story of the Hills. 

der is found at a height of seven thousand feet 
above the sea. 

Lower forms of life not possessing a back- 
bone (invertebrates) abound in this region ; but 
they are far too numerous to be considered here. 
Butterflies and moths are abundant ; and many 
of those which are rare in England are common 
in the Alps, so that the entomologist finds a 
happy hunting-ground. The beautiful swallow- 
tail and the handsome apollo, coppers, painted 
ladies, fritillaries, and many other Lepidoptera 
thrive in these regions, and are less easily 
frightened than at home in England. 



PART II. 
HOW THE MOUNTAINS WERE MADE. 



part II. 

HOW THE MOUNTAINS WERE MADE. 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW THE MATERIALS WERE BROUGHT TOGETHER. 

These changes in the heavens, though slow, produce 
Like change on sea and land. 

Milton 

Probably every mountain climber, resting for 
a brief space on a loose boulder, or seeking the 
shade of some overhanging piece of rock, 
has often asked himself, " How were all 
these rocks made ? " The question must occur 
again and again to any intelligent person on 
visiting a mountain for the first time, or even 
on seeing a mountain-range in the distance. 
He may well ask his companions how these 
great ramparts of the earth were built up. But 
unless he possesses some knowledge of the science 
of geology, which tells of the manifold changes 
which in former ages have taken place on the 
earth, or unless, in the absence of such know-* 



142 The Story of the Hills. 

ledge, he chance to meet with a geologist, his 
question probably remains unanswered. Such 
questions, however, can be very satisfactorily 
answered, — thanks to the labours of zealous 
seekers after truth, who have given the best 
part of their lives to studying the rocks which 
are found everywhere on the surface of the 
earth, and the changes they undergo. Geol- 
ogy is a truly English science ; and Englishmen 
may well cherish gratefully the memories of its 
pioneers, — Hutton, Playfair, Lyell, and others, 
who have made the way so clear for future 
explorers. 

The story of the hills as written on their own 
rocky tablets and on the very boulders lying 
loose on their sloping sides, and interpreted by 
geologists, is a long one ; for it takes us far back 
into the dim ages of the past, and like the 
fashionable novel, may be divided into three 
parts, or volumes. To those who follow the 
stony science it is quite as fascinating as a mod- 
ern romance, and a great deal more wonderful, 
thus illustrating the force of the old saying, 
" Truth is stranger than fiction." 

The three parts of our story may be best 
expressed by the three following inquiries : 



How the Materials were brought together. 143 

I. How were the materials of which mountains are 
built up brought together and made into hard rock ? 

II. How were they raised up into the elevated po- 
sitions in which we now find them ? 

III. How were they carved out into all their won- 
derful and beautiful features of crag and precipice, 
peaks and passes ? 

A mountain group, with its central peak or 
spire, its long ridges, steep walls, towers, but- 
tresses, dark hollows, and carved pinnacles 
standing out against the sky, has well been 
compared to a great and stately building such 
as a cathedral or a temple. Mountains are 
indeed " a great and noble architecture, giving 
first shelter, comfort, and rest, but covered 
also with mighty sculpture and painted legend ;" 
and to many they are Nature's shrines, where 
men may offer their humble praises and prayers 
to the great Architect who reared them for His 
children. We have introduced this illustration 
because it will help us in our inquiry. Suppose 
we were standing in front of some great cathe- 
dral, such as Milan, with all its marble pinnacles, 
or Notre Dame, with its stately towers, or the 
minsters of York or Durham in our own coun- 
try, and trying to picture to ourselves how it was 



144 The Story of the Hills. 

built. No one has lived long enough to watch 
the completion of one of these great buildings ; 
but for all that, we know pretty well how it was 
made, even by watching the builder's operations 
for a short time, or by following, as we often 
may, the various stages in the construction of a 
small house. So it is with Nature's work. We 
cannot, in our little lives, witness the rearing of 
a great mountain-chain, or even the carving of a 
single hill ; but we can observe for ourselves the 
slow and continuous operations which in the 
course of thousands and thousands of years 
produce such stupendous results. We may learn 
how the building operations are conducted, 
though the final results will only be manifested 
in the far-distant future. 

But to return to our cathedral. If we try to 
picture to ourselves the long years during which 
it was covered with scaffolding and surrounded 
by a busy army of workers, we shall soon per- 
ceive that the operations may be broadly divided 
into three heads. First, we must inquire how 
the separate stones of which it is composed were 
brought together into one place, and we shall at 
once picture to ourselves groups of men working 
in stone-quarries, — perhaps a long way off, — 



How the Materials were brought together. 145 

busy with their crowbars and hammers, breaking 
off large blocks of stone, and following the natural 
divisions of the rock that their rough labour may 
be lessened ; for all rocks will split more easily 
along certain lines than along others. Some- 
times it is easier to follow the " bedding," or 
natural layers in which the rock was formed ; at 
other times the " joints," or cracks subsequently 
formed as the rocky materials hardened and con- 
tracted in bulk, afford easier lines for the work- 
men to follow. Others are busily engaged in 
placing the stony blocks on trollies drawn by 
horses, that they may be borne along the roads 
leading from the quarry to the site of the future 
cathedral. And so, taking a bird's-eye view, we 
seem to see horses and carts slowly moving on 
from many a distant quarry, but all converging 
like the branches of a river to one main channel, 
and finally depositing their burdens in the stone- 
yard where the masons are at work. Perhaps 
bricks are partly employed, in which case we can 
easily picture to ourselves the brickyards, where 
some are digging out the soft clay, others mould- 
ing it into bricks with wooden moulds, while 
others again lay them down in rows on the 
ground to dry, before they are baked in the 

10 



146 The Story of the Hills. 

ovens. And when the bricks are ready for 
use, the same means of transportation are em- 
ployed ; and cart-loads of them are borne along 
the country roads until they so reach their 
destination. 

Now, all this may be summed up in the one 
word "transportation;" and we shall presently 
inquire how the rocky matter of which the 
mountains are built was transported. 

Secondly. We have to inquire how the bricks 
and stones were raised up. The analogy is not 
quite perfect in this case ; for the mountains were 
raised up en bloc, not bit by bit and stone by 
stone, as in the case of the cathedral. Still they 
have been raised somehow. Analogies are sel- 
dom complete in every detail ; but for all that, 
our illustration serves well enough, and will help 
us in following the various processes of moun- 
tain building. In these days, the raising of the 
stones is mostly effected by steam-power applied 
to big cranes and pulleys. In old days they 
used cranes and pulleys, but the ropes were 
pulled by hand-power. In either case the 
work proceeds slowly ; and we can easily pic- 
ture to ourselves the daily raising of the stones 
of which the cathedral is composed. " What 



How the Materials were brought together. 147 

were the forces at work which slowly raised 
the mountains ? " This question we will en- 
deavour to answer later on (see next chapter). 
This work may be included in the one word, 
"elevation." 

And lastly. We must inquire how the carv- 
ing of the stately building was effected, how its 
pinnacles received their shape, and how all those 
lovely details received their final forms ; how 
the intricate traceries of its windows were made, 
and the statues carved which adorn its solemn 
portals. This question is easily answered, for 
we are all more or less familiar with what 
goes on in a stone-mason's yard. Under those 
wooden sheds we see a number of skilled labour- 
ers at work, busy with their chisels and mallets, 
cutting out, according to the patterns made 
from the architect's detailed drawings, the por- 
tions of tracery for windows, or the finials, 
crockets, and other features of the future 
building. In another part of the yard may 
be seen the stone-cutters, working in pairs and 
slowly pulling backwards and forwards those 
long saws which, with the help of water 
and sand, in time cut through the biggest 
blocks. All this work then may be summed 



148 The Story of the Hills. 

up under the one word, " ornamentation," for it 
includes the cutting and carving of the stone. 
Our three lines of inquiry may now be 
summed up in these three words, which, are 
easily remembered : — 

Transportation, 

Elevation, 

Ornamentation. 

Taking the first of these subjects for con- 
sideration in the present chapter, we have 
now to inquire into the nature of the materi- 
als of which mountains are composed and the 
means by which they have been brought to- 
gether and compacted into hard rock. 

First, with regard to the nature of the ma- 
terials which Mother Earth uses to build her 
rocky ramparts : they are the same as the 
ordinary rocks of which the earth's crust is 
composed ; and the greater part of them have 
been formed by the action of water. These 
are the ordinary " stratified " rocks, which in 
one form or another meet us almost every- 
where, and may be said to be aqueous de- 
posits, or sediments formed in seas and inland 
lakes. They are always arranged in layers, 
known to geologists as " strata," because they 



How the Materials were brought together. 149 

have been gently laid down, or strewn (Latin, 
stratum), at the bottom of some large body of 
water. There were pauses in the deposition 
of the materials, during which each layer had 
time to harden a little before the next one 
was formed. This accounts for the stratifica- 
tion. In this way great deposits of sand- 
stone, clay, and limestone, with their numerous 
varieties, have been in the course of ages 
gradually piled up, till they have attained to 
enormous thickness, which at first sight seem 
almost incredible ; but the bed of the seas 
in which they formed was probably under- 
going a slow sinking process that kept pace 
with the growth of these deposits, other- 
wise the sea might have been more or less 
filled up. 

And these processes are still going on. In 
fact, it is entirely by watching what goes on 
now that geologists are able to explain what 
took place a very long time ago when there 
were no human beings on the earth to record 
the events that took place. And so we argue 
from the present to the past, from the known 
to the unknown. In other words, geology is 
based upon physical geography, which tells 



150 The Story of the Hi Us. 

us of the changes now in progress on the 
earth. Thus, sandstone, as frequently met 
with in different parts of Great Britain, and 
largely used for building purposes, such as the 
familiar old red sandstone 1 of South Wales, 
Hereford, and the north of England and dif- 
ferent parts of Scotland, was once soft sand 
in no way at all different from the sand of 
the seashore at the present day, or of the 
sandy bed of the North Sea. In process of 
time it became hardened, and acquired its 
characteristic red colour, which is due to ox- 
ide of iron. In some places numerous fossil 
fishes have been discovered in this interesting 
formation, so intimately associated with the 
name of Hugh Miller, who first thoroughly 
explored it ; these and other remains entombed 
therein tell us of the strange forms of life 
which flourished on the earth during that very 
old-fashioned period of the world's history ; 
and by putting together all kinds of evi- 
dences derived from the rock itself, geologists 
are able to form a very good idea of the 

1 The reader will find an account of the old red sandstone 
in the writer's " Autobiography of the Earth " (Edward Stan- 
ford, 1890). 



How the Materials were brought together. 151 

way in which this rock-deposit was accumu- 
lated, always, however, basing their conclu- 
sions on a thorough knowledge of what goes 
on at the present day in seas, rivers, and in- 
land lakes. 

In the great series of stratified rocks form- 
ing what is commonly called the crust of the 
earth (an unfortunate term which has sur- 
vived from the time when the interior of the 
earth was generally believed to be in a fiery 
molten condition, and covered by a thin coat- 
ing of solid rock at the surface), there are 
besides the sandstones, of which we have just 
spoken, great deposits of dark-coloured clays, 
shales, and slates. All these can be accounted 
for by the geologist. They are simply dif- 
ferent states of what was once soft mud. 
The slates tell us that they have been sub- 
jected to very severe pressure, which squeezed 
their particles till they were elongated and 
all arranged in one direction, and this is the 
reason why they split up into thin sheets. 

Others, again, represent vast deposits of car- 
bonate of lime, thousands of feet thick and 
now occupying hundreds of square miles of 
the earth's surface. Limestone rocks are as 



152 The Story of the Hills. 

abundant in our own country as the sand- 
stones, shales, or slates. The chalk of which 
the North and South Downs are composed is 
a familiar example. It is seen again forming- 
Salisbury Plain, in Hampshire and the Isle 
of Wight, and then it may be traced running 
up the country in a long band through the 
counties of Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, until 
it reaches the coast at Flamborough Head in 
Yorkshire. Then we have the Bath Oolites 
so much used in building, for they form 
an admirable " freestone " that can be easily 
carved and cut in any direction (hence the 
term "freestone"); and lastly, the great 
mountain limestone so well developed in South 
Wales, Yorkshire, and the Lake country. All 
these were slowly built up at the bottom of 
the seas which existed in past ages; great 
beds of gravel formed at the mouths of rivers, 
and long banks of pebbles and rounded stones 
collected on the shore of primeval seas, and 
were ground against each other as now by 
the action of the waves, until all their cor- 
ners were rubbed off. Pebble-beds, called by 
geologists conglomerates, are met with among 
the stratified rocks ; and their story is easily 



How the Materials were brought together. 153 

read by studying what takes place at the 
present day on our seashores. 

Now, the sandstones, clays, gravels, and peb- 
ble-beds all represent, as will presently be ex- 
plained, so much material worn away from 
the surface of the land and swept into the 
ocean (or in some cases into inland seas and 
lakes) by streams and rivers, which are the 
great transporting agents of the world. Hence 
such deposits of debris, supplied by the con- 
stant wear and tear of all rocks exposed to 
the atmosphere, are truly sedimentary and 
have a purely mechanical origin. But it is 
not so with the limestones. The latter were 
never transported, but grew at the bottom of 
the sea in very wonderful ways. They have 
nothing to do with the wear and tear of the 
land to which the others owe their existence, 
but represent vast quantities of carbonate of 
lime extracted from sea water. Sea water 
contains a certain amount of this substance 
in a dissolved state, or "in solution," as a 
chemist would say ; and the way in which 
this is extracted by the agency of various 
creatures, such as coral polypes and little mi- 
croscopic creatures that build their shells of 



154 The Story of the Hitls. 

carbonate of lime, of great beauty, forms one 
of the most interesting subjects presented to 
the student of physical geography. Hence, 
since limestone can only be accounted for by 
the agency of living organisms, 1 it is rightly 
termed an organic deposit, and the others are 
said to be mechanical deposits. But both are 
called " aqueous rocks," because they are 
formed under water. It is important to dis- 
tinguish clearly between these two very dif- 
ferent methods of rock-formation. 

But although water plays such a very impor- 
tant part in the making of the common rocks 
around us, yet there are others which have 
quite a different origin, — rocks which have 
come up from below the surface of the earth 
in a heated and molten condition, such as the 
lavas that flow from volcanoes in active erup- 
tions and the showers of ashes and fine volcanic 
dust which often attend such eruptions (see chap. 
viii., pp. 271-272). Some highly heated rocks, 
though they never rise to the surface to form 
lava-flows, are forced up with overwhelming 
pressure from below, and wedge themselves into 

1 The flints usually found in limestone are also of organic 
orijrin. 



How the Materials were brought together. 155 

the sedimentary rocks that overlie them, thus 
forming what are known as volcanic dykes, and 
intrusive masses or sheets of once molten rock. 
Tn this category we include such rocks as basalt, 
felstone, pitchstone, and other rocks of fiery 
origin that have flowed from volcanoes as lava, 
as well as those like granite, which have cooled 
and become solid below the surface, and are 
Plutonic, or deep-seated, igneous rocks. Granite 
may be exposed to the surface of the earth when 
the rocks which once overlaid it have been worn 
away or "denuded." It is frequently seen in 
the central regions of mountain-chains, where a 
vast amount of erosion has been effected. Thus 
we see that heat has played its part in the mak- 
ing of rocks ; and for this reason such rocks as 
we have just mentioned are called igneous. Fire 
and water are therefore very important geologi- 
cal agents ; but we should say heat rather than 
fire, because the latter word might convey a 
false impression. No rocks can be burned ex- 
cept coal, which may be considered rather as 
a mineral deposit than as a rock. Some rocks 
may be heated, and undergo many and various 
changes in their mineral composition ; but they 
are not capable of combustion. 



156 The Story of the Hit Is. 

So far, then, we have learned that the rocks 
exposed to view on the surface of the earth 
may be divided into two classes; that is, aqueous 
and igneous. There is yet a third class, which, 
though of aqueous origin, has in course of time 
suffered considerable from the internal heat 
of the earth and the enormous pressure due to 
the weight of overlying rocks. Such rocks 
have been greatly changed from their original 
condition, both in appearance and in mineral 
composition, and are said to be " metamorphic," 
a word which implies change. Thus chalk, or 
other limestone rock, has been metamorphosed 
into marble ; shales and slates into various 
kinds of " schists," i such as mica-schist, and 
even into gneiss, which closely resembles 
granite. And it is quite possible that even 
granite may in some cases be the result of 
the melting and consolidation under great pres- 
sure of certain familiar stratified rocks. It is 
quite conceivable that slate might be converted 
into granite, for their chemical composition is 

1 Schists are so named from their property of splitting into 
thin layers. Their structure is crystalline ; and the layers, or 
folia, consist usually of two or more minerals, but sometimes of 
only one. Thus mica-schist consists of quartz and mica, each 
arranged in many folia, but it splits along the layers of mica. 



How the Materials were brought together. 157 



similar, only the minerals of which it is com- 
posed would require to be rearranged and 
grouped into new compounds. This would 
seem quite possible ; but at present we have no 
direct proof of such a change having taken 
place. Even igneous rocks are found in some 
places to have suffered very considerable change. 

In some inland seas, like the Caspian Sea, 
deposits of rock salt and gypsum may be formed 
by chemical precipitation, owing to evaporation 
from the surface. 

The various kinds of rock known to geolo- 
gists may be conveniently arranged as follows : 









f Clay, shale, slate, etc. 




I. 


Sedimentary. 


•< Sandstones. 
( Conglomerates. 


Rocks of 






( Limestones. 


aqueous 


II. 


Organic. 


1 Flint. 


origin. 






( Coal. 




III. 


Chemical. 


( Rock salt. 
( Gypsum, etc. 


Rocks of 


(I - 


Volcanic. 


( Lavas. 

( Volcanic ashes, etc. 


igneous origin. 


II. 


Plutonic. 


( Basalt. 




1 




( Granite. 


Metamorphic rocks 






C Marbles. 


of aqueous and 






■} Various kinds of schists 


igneous origin. 






( Gneiss, etc. 



158 The Story of the Hills. 

So far we have only attempted to state very 
briefly the different kinds of rocks, and to point 
out that they were formed in various ways. 
We must now consider the question of rock- 
making more closely, and see what we can learn 
about the wonderful ways in which rocks are 
made ; and it may be instructive to glance at 
the conflicting opinions on this subject which 
learned men held not very long ago. 

At the end of the last century a great contro- 
versy took place on the question of the origin 
of rocks, and the learned men of the day were 
divided into two parties. One of these parties, 
following the teaching of Werner, professor of 
mining at Freyburg, who inspired great enthu- 
siasm among his disciples, declared that all rocks 
were formed by the agency of water. This was 
a very sweeping and of course rash conclusion. 
But whenever they examined rocks, they found 
so many clear evidences of the action of water 
that a powerful impression of the importance 
of this agency was naturally made on their 
minds. The}' found rocks uniformly arranged 
in great layers which extended for long dis- 
tances, and containing the remains of animals 
which must undoubtedly have lived in the seas 



How the Materials were brought together. 159 

or estuaries. These layers were further divided 
into smaller layers, such as clearly were formed 
by the slow settling clown of sand and mud. 
Others again contained gravels and rounded 
pebbles, testifying m no uncertain way to the 
action of water. Even the little grains of sand 
are obviously water-worn. This teaching was 
quite sound so long as they confined their atten- 
tion to clays, sandstones, and limestones ; but 
when they came to basalt and granite, a blind 
adherence to the views of their master caused 
them to shut their eyes to the clear evidences 
of the action of heat, presented by such rocks. 
The crystalline structure of such rocks ; their 
irregular arrangement, often so different from 
the uniform disposition of the stratified rocks 
(although it must be admitted that ancient lava- 
flows often lie very evenly between aqueous 
rocks), and the way in which they burst through 
overlying rocks, thus proving their former 
molten condition ; the siorns of alteration ex- 
hibited in the aqueous rocks into which they 
intruded themselves (changes which are obvi- 
ously due to the action of heat), — these and 
other evidences were entirely overlooked, and 
Werner declared that basalt had been found as 
a sediment under water. 



160 The Story of the Hills. 

This school of geologists, believing so strongly 
in the all-powerful influence of Father Nep- 
tune, received the not inappropriate title of 
'•' Neptunists." 

On the other hand, the party who happened 
to be in districts where granite, basalt, and such 
igneous rocks abounded were equally impressed 
with the importance of the powerful agency of 
heat. To them nearly every rock they met with 
seemed to show some signs of its action. And 
since Pluto was the classical deity of the lower 
regions, and the earth shows evidences in places 
of greater heat below the surface, this party re- 
ceived the title of " Plutonists ;" and so the battle 
raged hotly for some time between the Neptun- 
ists, with their claims for cold water, and the 
fiery Plutonists of the rival school of Edinburgh, 
with their subterranean heat. Fire and water 
are never likely to agree ; and they did not do so 
in this case. But now that the battle is over, 
and both sides are found to have been partly 
right and partly wrong, — though the Neptun- 
ists have the advantage, — we can afford to 
smile at the fierceness of the contest, and 
wonder how it was that each side thought 
they were so entirely in the right. 



How the Materials were brought together. 161 

Let ns now consider the aqueous rocks, and 
see if we can gain a clear idea of the ways in 
which they were formed ; and first, we will 
take those of a purely sedimentary origin, — 
the sandstones, pebble-beds, gravels, and clays. 
These, as the reader has already probably 
guessed, have all been transported by means 
of streams and rivers, and settled down quietly 
in seas at the mouths of rivers or in inland 
lakes. There is no trace of the action of heat 
in the forming of these rocks, though they 
often show signs of having suffered more or 
less change from contact with highly heated 
igneous rocks of later date which forcibly in- 
truded themselves from below ; and if the 
change thus effected were considerable, we 
should call the rocks so altered metamorphic. 
But we are now dealing with their original 
state and how they were made ; and of that 
there is no possible doubt whatever. So for the 
time being we may call ourselves Neptunists. 

Streams and rivers are the great transporting 
agents whereby the never-failing supply of de- 
bris from the waste of the land is unceasingly 
brought down from the mountains and hills, 
through the broad valleys and along the great 

11 



162 The Story of the Hills. 

plains, until finally it is flung into the sea. The 
sea is the workshop where all the sedimentar}^ 
rocks are slowly manufactured from the raw 
material brought to it by the rivers. But for 
the present we must confine our attention to 
the question of transport. Referring back to 
our illustration of the cathedral, we may say 
that streams and rivers play the part of cart 
and horses. They bring the materials down 
from the quarry to the scene of action, — the 
workshop where they are wanted. The quar- 
ries, in this case, may be said to be almost 
everywhere. For wherever rocks and soil are 
exposed to the action of wind and weather, 
there is certain to be more or less decay and 
crumbling away. But it is among the hills and 
in the higher parts of the mountains that the 
forces of destruction are most active. How this 
is brought about will be discussed in the seventh 
chapter, on the carving of the hills. The fre- 
quent slopes covered with loose stones are 
sufficient evidence of the continual destruc- 
tion that takes place in these regions. 

The transporting powers of rivers are truly 
prodigious. Looking at a stream or river after 
heavy rain, we see its waters heavily' laden with 



How the Materials were brought together. 163 

mud and sand ; but it is difficult to realise from 
a casual glance the vast amount of material 
that is thus brought down to lower levels. If 
we could trace the sediment to its source, we 
must seek it among the rocks of mountains far 
away. Step by step we may trace it up along 
the higher courses of the river, then along 
mountain streams rushing over their rocky 
beds, tumbling in cascades over broken rocks, 
or leaping in waterfalls over higher projections 
of rock, until we come to the deep furrows on 
the sides of mountains along which loose frag- 
ments of rock come tumbling clown with the 
cascades of water that run along these steep 
channels after heavy rain, leaving at the base 
of the mountain great fan-shaped heaps of 
stones. 

" Oft both slope and hill are torn 
Where wintry torrents down have borne, 
And heaj)ed upon the cumbered land 
Its wreck of gravel, rocks, and sand." 

These accumulations are gradually carried 
away by the larger mountain streams, which 
in hurrying them along cause a vast amount 
of wear and tear ; so that their corners are worn 
off, and they get further and further reduced in 



164 The Story of the Hills. 

size, becoming mere round pebbles lining the 
bed of the stream, and finally by the time they 
reach the large slow-moving rivers of the plains 
are mainly reduced to tiny specks of mud or 
grains of sand. So then the rivers and streams 
not only transport sediment, but they manufac- 
ture it as they go along. And thus they may 
be considered as great grinding-mills, where 
large pieces of stone go in at one end, and 
only fine sand and mud come out at the 
other. 

The amount of land debris thus transported 
depends partly on the canying power of rivers, 
which varies with the seasons and the annual 
rainfall; partly on the size of the area drained, 
by a river; and again, partly on the nature of 
the rocks of which that area is composed. 

A stream, moving along at the rate of about 
half a mile (880 yards) an hour, which is a slow 
rate, can carry along ordinary sandy soil sus- 
pended in a cloud-like fashion in the water ; 
when moving at the rate of two thirds of a mile 
(about 1,173 yards) an hour, it can roll fine 
gravel along its bed; but when the rate increases 
to a yard in a second, or a little more than two 
miles an hour, it can sweep along angular stones 



How the Materials were brought together. 165 

as large as an egg. But streams often flow much 
faster than this, and so do rivers when swollen 
by heavy rain. 

A rapid torrent often flows at the rate of 
eighteen or twenty miles an hour, and then 
we may hear the stones rattling against each 
other as they are irresistibly rolled onward ; 
and during very heavy floods, huge masses of 
rock as large as a house have been known 
to be moved. 

These are the two principal ways in which 
streams and rivers act as transporting agents : 
they carry the finer materials in a suspended state 
(though partly drifting it along their beds) ; and 
they push the coarser materials, such as gravel, 
bodily along. But there is one other way in 
which they carry on the important work of 
transportation, which, being unseen, might easily 
escape our notice. Every spring is busily em- 
ployed in bringing up to the surface mineral 
substances which the water has dissolved out of 
the underground rocks. This invisible material 
finds its way, as the springs do, to the rivers, and 
so finally is brought into that great reservoir, the 
sea. Bain and river water also dissolve a certain 
amount of mineral matter from rocks lying on 



166 The Story of the Hills. 

the surface of the earth. Now, the material 
which is most easily dissolved is carbonate of 
lime. Hence if you take a small quantity of 
spring or river water and boil it until the whole 
is evaporated, you will find that it leaves behind 
a certain amount of deposit. This, when ana- 
lysed by the chemist, proves to be chiefly car- 
bonate of lime ; but it also contains minute 
quantities of other minerals, such as common 
salt, potash, soda, oxide of iron, and silica, or 
flint. All these and other minerals are found 
to be present in sea water. 

The waters of some of the great rivers of the 
world have been carefully examined at different 
times, in order to form some idea of the amount 
of solid matter which they contain, both dissolved 
and suspended ; and the results are extremely 
important and interesting, for they enable us to 
form definite conclusions with regard to their 
capacity for transport. This subject has been 
investigated with great skill by eminent men of 
science. The problem is a very complicated one ; 
but it is easy to see that if we know roughly the 
number of gallons of water annually discharged 
into the sea by a big river, and the average 
amount of solid matter contained in such a gal- 



How the Materials were brotight together. 167 

Ion of water, we have the means of calculating, 
by a simple process of multiplication, the amount 
of solid matter annually brought clown to the 
sea by that river. But we must also add the 
amount of sand, gravel, and stones pushed along 
its bed. This may be roughly estimated and 
allowed for. These are some of the results : 

The amount of solid matter discharged every 
year by that great river, the Mississippi, if piled 
up on a single square mile of the bed of the sea, 
— say, in the Gulf of Mexico, where that river 
discharges itself, — would make a great square- 
shaped pile 268 feet high. But the Gulf Stream, 
sweeping through this gulf, carries the materials 
for many and many a mile away ; so that in 
course of time it gradually sinks and spreads it- 
self as a fine film or layer over part of the great 
Atlantic Ocean. The mud brought down by 
the great river Amazon spreads so far into the 
Atlantic Ocean as to discolour the water even 
at a distance of three hundred miles. The 
Ganges and the Brahmapootra, flowing into the 
Bay of Bengal, discharge every year into that 
part of the Indian Ocean 6,368,000,000 cubic 
feet of solid matter. This material would in 
one year raise a space of fifteen square miles 



168 The Story of the Hills. 

one foot in height. The weight of mud, etc., 
that these rivers bring down is sixty times 
that of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, or about 
six million tons. 

Or, to put the matter in another way, if 
a fleet of more than eighty " Indiamen," each 
with a cargo of fourteen hundred tons of solid 
matter, sailed down every hour, night and day, 
for four months, and discharged their burdens 
into the waters of the Indian Ocean, they 
would only do what the mighty Ganges does 
quietly and easily in the four months of the 
flood season. 

It is probable that even the Thames, a small 
river compared to those just mentioned, manages 
to bring down, in one way or another, fourteen 
million cubic feet of solid matter. These few 
figures may suffice to give the reader some idea 
of the enormous amount of rock-forming mate- 
rials brought down to the seas at the present 
day. 

Of course they are spread out far and wide by 
the numerous ocean currents, some of which 
flow for hundreds of miles ; and so the bed of the 
sea can only be very slowly raised by their ac- 
cumulation. Still the geologist can allow plenty 



How the Materials were brought together. 169 

of time, for there is no doubt that the world is 
immensely old ; and if we allow thousands of 
years, we may easily comprehend that deposits 
of very considerable thickness may in this way 
accumulate on the floors of the oceans. Also 
the coasts of continents and islands suffer 
continual wear and tear at the hands of 
sea waves; and thus the supply of sediment 
is increased. 

When the geologist comes to study the great 
rock-masses — hundreds, and even thousands, of 
feet in thickness — of which mountain-ranges are 
composed, he finds all those kinds of rock which 
we have just been considering, — sandstones, 
shales (or hardened clays), pebble-beds, and lime- 
stones, — and endeavours to picture to himself 
their gradual growth in the ways we have de- 
scribed. In so doing, he is driven to the conclu- 
sion that many thousands of years must have 
been occupied in their construction. 

We must now say a few words about those 
other aqueous rocks which have an organic ori- 
gin, of which limestone is the chief. It is indeed 
a startling conclusion that deposits of great 
thickness, and ranging for very many miles over 
the earth's surface, have been slowly built up 



170 The Story of the Hilts. 

through the agency of marine animals extracting 
carbonate of lime from the sea. Yet such is 
undoubtedly the case. Of this important pro- 
cess of rock-building coral reefs are the most 
familiar example. The great barrier reef along 
the northeast coast of Australia is about 1,250 
miles long, from ten to ninety miles in width, 
and rises at its seaward edge from depths which 
in some places certainly exceed eighteen hundred 
feet. It may be likened to a great submarine 
wall. Now, all this solid masonry is the work 
of humble coral polypes (not " insects " ), build- 
ing up their own internal frame-work or skeleton 
by extracting carbonate of lime from sea water. 
Then the breakers dashing against coral reefs 
produce, by their grinding action, a great deal of 
fine " coral-sand " and calcareous mud, which 
covers the surrounding bed of the sea for many 
miles. 

Now, geologists find that some limestone for- 
mations met with in the stratified rocks have 
certainly been formed in this way ; for example, 
certain parts of the great " mountain limestone." 
This is proved by the fossil corals it contains, 
and by tracing the old coral reefs ; but it is also 
largely formed by the remains of other graceful 



How the Materials were brought together. 171 

calcareous creatures known as encrinites, or 
" sea-lilies," with long branching arms that 
waved in the clear water. Such creatures still 
exist in some deeper parts of the sea, and look 
more like plants than animals. In former ages 
they existed in great abundance, and so played 
an important part as rock-formers, — for their 
stems, branches, and all are made of little plates 
of carbonate of lime, beautifully fitting together 
like the separate bones, or vertebrae, composing 
the backbone of a fish ; and when the creatures 
died, these little plates no longer held together, 
but were scattered on the floor of the sea-bed. 
Shell-fish abounded too, and their shelly re- 
mains accumulated into regular shell-beds in 
some places. But at times mud and sand 
would come and cover over all these organic 
deposits. 

But of all rocks that have an organic origin, 
chalk is the most interesting. Geologists were 
for a long time puzzled to know how this rock 
could have been formed ; but some soundings 
made in the Atlantic Ocean previous to the 
laying of the first Atlantic cable led to a very 
important discovery, which at once threw a 
flood of light on the question. Samples of the 



172 The Story of the Hills. 

mud lying on the bed of this ocean at consider- 
able distances from the European and American 
coasts, and at depths varying from one thou- 
sand to three thousand fathoms, were brought 
up by sounding apparatus. 

Little was it thought that the dull grey ooze 
covering a large part of the Atlantic bed would 
bring a message from the depths of the sea, and 
furnish the answer to a great geological problem. 
Yet such was the case ; for under the micro- 
scope this mud was seen to be chiefly composed 
of very minute and very beautiful shells, now 
known as foraminifera, and much prized by 
microscopists. These tiny shells are found at or 
near the surface of the sea ; and after the death 
of the creatures that inhabit them (which are 
only lumps of protoplasm with no organs of 
any kind), the shells slowly sink down to the 
bed of the ocean. Now, these creatures multiply 
at so inconceivable a rate that a continuous 
shower of dead shells seems to be taking place, 
and the result is the slow accumulation over 
vast areas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans of 
a great deposit of calcareous ooze, which if raised 
above the sea-level would harden into a rock 
very similar to chalk. 






MlCBOPHOTOGEAPHS ILLUSTRATING ROCK FORMATION. 
I. Foraminifera. II. Section of Granite. III. jS T umnmlitic Limestone. 



How the Materials were brought together. 173 

But this process only takes place in the 
deeper parts of our seas, far removed from land, 
where the supply of land-derived materials fails, 
— for even the finest mud supplied by rivers 
probably all settles down before travelling two 
or three hundred miles from its native shores. 

Thus we learn that when one agency fails, 
Nature makes use of another to take up the 
important work of rock-building. How the 
other rocks which we mentioned in our list 
were formed, — such as granite, basalt, and the 
metamorphic rocks, — we must explain in a 
future chapter dealing with volcanoes and their 
work. 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOW THE MOUNTAINS WERE UPHEAVED. 

The notion that the ground is naturally steadfast is an error, 
— an error which arises from the incapacity of our senses to ap 
predate any but the most palpable, and at the same time most 
exceptional, of its movements. The idea of terra firma belongs 
with the ancient belief that the earth was the centre of the uni- 
verse. It is, indeed, by their mobility that the continents survive 
the increasing assaults of the ocean waves, and the continuous 
down-wearing which the rivers and glaciers bring about. — Pro- 
fessor Shale r. 

We have found out the quarries which supplied 
the rocky framework of mountains, and have 
learned how the work of transporting these 
vast quantities of stone was accomplished by 
the agency of ever-flowing glaciers, rivers, and 
streams. 

We must now consider the second stage of 
the work, and inquire how the mountains 
were raised up. Referring back to our illustra- 
tion of the cathedral (see pages 143-147), it will 
be remembered that this work was included under 
the head of Elevation. But perhaps some one 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 175 

might ask : " How do you know that the 
mountains have been elevated or upheaved ? 
Is it not enough to suppose that they owe 
their height entirely to the fact that they are 
composed of harder rock, and so have been more 
successful in resisting the universal decay and 
destruction ? " Now, such an objection contains 
a good deal of truth, for mountains are formed 
of hard rocks ; but at the same time we know 
that the agents of denudation are more active 
among them than on the plains below, so that, 
in the higher mountain regions at least, the 
work of demolition may actually proceed faster 
than it does on low ground. 

Mountains are higher than the rest of the 
world, not merely because they are built of 
more lasting material, but also because they 
have been uplifted for thousands of feet above 
the level of the sea ; and the evidence of their 
upheaval is so plain as to be entirely beyond 
doubt. 

Let us inquire into the nature of this evidence. 
We have seen that the rocks of which moun- 
tains are composed were for the most part 
formed at the bottom of the sea. When the 
geologist finds, as he frequently does, buried in 



176 The Story of the Hills. 

mountain rocks the fossil remains of creatures 
that must have lived in the sea (and often very 
similar to those living there now), he is com- 
pelled to think of the gigantic upheavals that 
must have taken place before those remains 
could arrive at their present elevated position. 

Numerous examples might be given ; but we 
will only mention three. In the Alps marine 
fossils have been detected at a height of 10,000 
feet above sea-level, in the Himalayas at a 
height of 16,500 feet, and in the Rocky Moun- 
tains at a height of 11,000 feet. 

Again we must take it for granted that all the 
stratified or sedimentary rocks (see pages 148- 
149) with some trivial exceptions, such as beds 
of shingle and conglomerates, have been formed 
in horizontal layers. This is one of the simple 
axioms of geology to which every one must 
assent. 

Now, if we find in various parts of the con- 
tinents, and especially among the mountains, 
such strata sloping or " dipping " in various 
directions, sometimes only slightly, but some- 
times very steeply, — nay, even standing up on 
end, — the conclusion that they have been up- 
heaved and pushed or squeezed into these vari- 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 177 

ous positions by some subsequent process is 
irresistible. But this is not all ; for in every 
mountain region we find that the rocks have 
been crumpled, twisted, and folded in a most 
marvellous manner. Solid sheets of limestone 
may be seen, as it were, to writhe from the base 
to the summit of a mountain ; yet they present 
everywhere their truncated ends to the air, and 
from their incompleteness it is easy to see what 
a vast amount of material has been worn away, 
leaving, as it were, mere fragments behind. The 
whole geological aspect of the Alps (for example) 
is suggestive of intense commotion ; and they re- 
main a marvellous monument of stupendous 
earth-throes, followed by prolonged and gigan- 
tic denudation (see diagrams, chap, ix., p. 307). 
There are certain features found in all moun- 
tain-chains which must be carefully borne in 
mind, especially when we are considering the 
explanations that have been suggested with re- 
gard to their upheaval. These may be briefly 
stated as follows : — 

1. Mountain-chains tend to run in straight or gently 
curving lines. 

2. Their breadth is small compared to their length, 
and their height smaller still. 

12 



178 The Story of the Hills. 

3. They rise sharply and are clearly marked off 
from the country on either side. 

4. They form the backbones of continents. 

5. The rocks of which they are composed have been 
greatly disturbed, folded, and contorted. 

6. There is often a band of crystalline rocks 
(granite, gneiss, etc.) running along the centre of 
a high range. 

7. They are connected with lines of volcanoes. 

8. They are frequently affected by earthquakes. 

Having arrived at the conclusion that the 
mountains show evident signs of upheaval, let 
us proceed to inquire whether any movements, 
either upward or downward, are taking place 
now on the earth, or can be proved to have 
done so within comparatively recent times. 
On this question there is ample evidence at 
our disposal. 

More than one hundred and thirty years ago, 
Celsius, the Swedish astronomer, was aware, 
from the unanimous testimony of the inhabi- 
tants of the sea-coasts, that the Gulf of Bothnia 
was constantly diminishing both in depth and 
extent. He resorted to measurements in order 
to prove (as he thought) that the waters of 
the Baltic were changing their level. This 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 179 

was a mistaken idea ; and we now understand 
that the level of the sea does not change, 
except under the influence of the daily rise 
and fall of the tide, which is easily allowed for. 
However, that was the idea then ; and it sur- 
vived for some time. But if the sea-level were 
continually sinking, the water, which, owing to 
the influence of gravitation, must always remain 
horizontal, would equally retreat all round the 
Scandinavian peninsula and on all our seashores. 
But this is not the case. Again, it would be im- 
possible on this theory to explain the curious 
fact that in some parts of the world the sea is 
gaining on the land, while in other places it is 
as surely retreating ; for we cannot believe that 
in one part the sea-level is rising, while in an- 
other (not far off in some cases) it is sinking. 
No body of water could behave in this irregular 
fashion ; and the sea could not possibly be rising 
and falling at the same time. 

Hence we may take it for granted that any 
change that we may notice in the relative level 
of land and sea must be due to upward or down- 
ward movements in the land. 

But to return to Celsius. Old men pointed 
out to him various points on the coast, over 



180 The Story of the Hills. 

which during their childhood the sea was wont 
to flow, and besides, showed him the water-lines 
which the waves had once traced out farther in- 
land. And besides this, the names of places which 
implied a position on the shore, former harbours 
or ports now abandoned and situated inland, 
the remains of boats found far from the sea, and 
lastly, the written records and popular songs, 
left no doubt that the sea had retreated ; and it 
seemed both to themselves and to the astronomer 
that the waters were sinking. In the year 1730 
Celsius, after comparing all the evidence he had 
collected, announced that the Baltic had sunk 
three feet, four inches, every hundred years. In 
the course of the following year, in company 
with Linnaeus, the naturalist, he made a mark at 
the base of a rock in the island of Leoffgrund, 
not far from Jelfe, and thirteen years after- 
wards was able to prove, as he thought, that 
the waters were still subsiding at the same rate, 
or a little faster. In reality, he had proved, 
not that the sea was sinking, but that the 
land was rising. 

Similar observations show that nearly the 
whole of Scandinavia is slowly rising out of 
the sea. At the northern end of the Gulf of 



Hew the Mountains were upheaved. 181 

Bothnia the land is emerging at the rate of five 
feet, three inches, in a century ; but by the side 
of the Aland Isles it onlv rises three and one 
quarter feet in the same time. South of this 
archipelago it rises still more slowly ; and far- 
ther clown, the line of shore does not alter as 
compared with the level of the sea. 

But it is a curious fact that the extreme 
southern end of this peninsula is subsiding, as 
proved by the forests that have been submerged. 
Several streets of some towns there have already 
disappeared, and the coast has lost on the aver- 
age a belt of land thirty-two yards in breadth. 

The upward movement of the Scandinavian 
peninsula must have been going on for a long 
time, if we assume that it was always at the 
same rate as at present ; for we find beds of sea- 
shells of living species at heights of six or seven 
hundred feet above the level of the sea. Great 
dead branches of a certain pink coral, found in 
the sea at a depth of over one hundred and fifty 
to three hundred fathoms, are now seen in water 
only ten or fifteen fathoms deep. It must have 
been killed as it was brought up into the upper 
and warmer layers of water. This is striking 
testimony. 



182 The Story of the Hills. 

The pine woods too, which clothe the hills, are 
continually being upheaved towards the lower 
limit of snow, and are gradually withering 
away in the cooler atmosphere ; and wide belts 
of forest are composed of nothing but dead 
trees, although some of them have stood for 
centuries. 

Geologists have proved that the Baltic Sea 
formerly communicated by a wide channel with 
the North Sea, the deepest depressions of which 
are now occupied by lakes in the southern part of 
Sweden ; for considerable heaps of oyster shells 
are now found in several places on the heights 
commanding these great lakes. Then we have 
in Denmark the celebrated " kitchen-middens," 
heaps of rubbish also largely composed of oyster- 
shells which the inhabitants, in the " Stone Age," 
collected from the bottoms of the neighbouring 
bays. At the present day the waters of the Bal- 
tic, into which rivers bring large quantities of 
fresh water, do not contain enough salt for oys- 
ters to grow there ; but the oyster-shells prove 
that the Baltic Sea and these inland lakes were 
once as salt as the North Sea is now. This can 
only be explained by supposing that the Baltic 
was not so shut in then as it is in these days. 



Hoiu the Mountains were upheaved. 183 

The bed of the old wide channel has risen, and 
what once was sea is now land. 

Again, it is very probable that the great lakes 
and innumerable sheets of water which fill all 
the granite basins of Finland have taken the 
place of an arm of the sea which once united the 
waters of the Baltic to those of the great Polar 
Ocean. And so there must have been up- 
heaval here as well. 

The old sea-beaches, now above the level of the 
highest tides, that are found in many parts of 
the Scandinavian, Scottish, and other coasts, fur- 
nish plain evidence of upheaval. 

At the present day, between the lines of high 
tide and low tide, the sea is constantly engaged 
in producing sand and shingle, spreading them 
out upon the beach, mingling them with the re- 
mains of shells and other marine animals, and 
sometimes piling them up, sometimes sweeping 
them away. In this way a beach often resem- 
bles a terrace. When the land is upheaved 
rapidly enough to carry up this line of beach- 
deposits before they are washed away by the 
waves, they form a flat terrace, or what is known 
as a " raised beach." The old high-water mark 
is then inland ; its sea-worn caves become in 



184 The Story of the Hills. 

time coated with ferns and mosses ; the old 
beach forms an admirable platform on which 
meadows, fields, villages, and towns spring 
np ; and the sea goes on forming a new beach 
below and beyond the margin of the old 
one. 

The Scottish coast-line, on both sides, is 
fringed with raised beaches, sometimes four 
or five occurring above each other, at heights 
of from twenty-five to seventy-five feet above 
the present high-water mark. Each of these 
lines of terrace marks a former lower level 
at which the land stood with regard to the 
sea ; and the spaces between them represent 
the amount of each successive rise of the land. 
Each terrace was formed during a pause, or 
interval, in the upward movement, during 
which the waves had time to make a terrace, 
whereas, while the land kept on rising, they 
had no time to do so. Thus we learn that 
the upheaval of the country was interrupted 
by considerable pauses. 

Sometimes old ports and harbours furnish 
evidence of upheaval. Thus, the former Ro- 
man port of Alaterva (Cramond) in Scotland, 
the quays of which are still visible, is now 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 185 

situated at some distance from the sea, and the 
ground on which it stands has risen at least 
twenty-four feet. In other places the scattered 
debris shows that the coast has risen twenty- 
six feet. And by a remarkable coincidence, 
the ancient wall of Antoninus, which in the 
time of the Romans stretched from sea to sea, 
and served as a barrier against the Picts, 
comes to an end at a point twenty-six feet 
above the level of high tides. In the estuary 
of the Clyde there are deposits of mud, con- 
taining rude canoes and other relics of human 
workmanship, several feet above the present 
high-water mark. 

Raised beaches are found on many parts 
of the coast of Great Britain. Excellent ex- 
amples occur on the coasts of Devon and 
Cornwall. On the sides of the mountainous 
fiords of Norway similar terraces are found 
up to more than six hundred feet above the 
sea ; and as some of these rise to a greater 
height at a distance of » fifty miles inland, it 
seems that there was a greater upward move- 
ment towards the interior of Norway than on 
the coasts. 

There is a celebrated raised beach on the 



186 The Story of the Hills. 

side of a mountain in North Wales, known 
as Moel Tryfaen, where the writer gathered a 
number of marine shells at a height of 1,357 
feet. 

But Scandinavia and Great Britain are not 
the only parts of Europe where an upward 
movement has taken place, for the islands of 
Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen show evidence 
of the same kind ; and the coast of Siberia, for 
six hundred miles to the east of the river 
Lena, has also been upraised. On the banks 
of the Dwina and the Vega, 250 miles to the 
south of the White Sea, Murchison found beds 
of sand and mud with shells similar to those 
which inhabit the neighbouring seas, so well 
preserved that they had not lost their colours. 

Again, the ground of the Siberian toundras 
is to a large extent covered with a thin coat- 
ing of sand and fine clay, exactly similar to 
that which is now deposited on the shores of 
the Frozen Ocean. In this clay, the remains 
of the mammoth, or woolly elephant, now 
extinct, are preserved in great numbers. 

Parts of Northern Greenland have also risen ; 
while at the southern end of this frozen land 
a downward movement is still taking place. 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 187 

The best-known example of these slow move- 
ments within historic times is the so-called 
Temple of Serapis in the Bay of Baie, near 
Naples. The ruins of this building, which was 
probably a Roman bath, consist of a square 
floor paved with marble, showing that it 
possessed a magnificent central court. This 
court, when perfect, was covered with a roof 
supported by forty-six fine columns, some of 
marble, others of granite. There is still a 
hot spring behind, from which water was con- 
ducted through a marble channel. All the col- 
umns but three were nearly buried in the soil 
which covered the whole court, when the ruins 
were first discovered. Now, each of the three 
marble columns that are still standing shows 
clear evidence of having been depressed below 
the sea-level, for they all exhibit a circular 
row of little holes bored by a certain marine 
shell-fish, known as Lithodomus dactylus, at a 
height of twelve feet from the floor ; each row 
is about eight feet broad. The shells may still 
be seen inside the little pear-shaped holes which 
the shell-fish bored for themselves ; and the same 
shell-fish still live in the waters of the Mediter- 
ranean and bore holes in the limestone rocks. 



188 The Story of the Hitls. 

It is therefore quite clear that these col- 
umns must have been under water to a depth 
of twenty feet or so, and also that they must 
have remained under water for some consider- 
able time, during which the shell-fish made 
these borings. Then an upheaval took place 
whereby the whole building was elevated to 
its present level. But underneath the present 
floor, at a depth of five feet, were discovered 
the remains of an older floor. This probably 
belonged to an earlier building which had in 
like manner been depressed below sea-level. 
We thus learn that the land in this spot had 
been sinking for a long time, and that at 
some subsequent time it rose. The fallen col- 
umns suggest the idea that they were thrown 
down by earthquakes. At the present time 
the land here is again sinking at the rate of 
one inch in three or four years. 

But the first example of upheaval within 
comparatively recent times, and one which is in- 
structive as throwing some light on the subject 
of the present chapter, — namely, the upheaval 
of mountain-chains, — is to be found along the 
western mountainous coast of South America. 
Here we have the magnificent ranges of the 



How the Mountains were tipkeaved. 189 

Andes running along the whole length of this 
continent. The illustrious Charles Darwin, 
during his famous trip in the " Beagle," dis- 
covered numerous raised beaches along this 
coast, and at once perceived their importance 
to the geologist. The terraces are not quite 
horizontal, but rise towards the south. On 
the frontier of Bolivia, they are seen at 
heights of from sixty-five to eighty feet above 
sea-level ; but nearer the higher mass of the 
Chilian Andes they are found at one thousand 
feet, and near Valparaiso, in Chili, at thirteen 
hundred feet above the sea. Darwin also dis- 
covered that some of the upheavals thus indi- 
cated took place during the human period ; 
for he found in one of the terraces opposite 
Callao, in Peru, at a height of eighty feet, 
shells with bones of birds, ears of wheat, 
plaited reeds, and cotton thread, showing that 
men had lived on the terrace. These relics 
of human industry are exactly similar to 
those that are found in the huacas, or bur- 
ial-places, of the ancient Peruvians. There 
can be no doubt that the island of San Lo- 
renzo, and probably the whole of the coast 
in its neighbourhood, have risen eighty feet 



190 The Story of the Hills. 

or more since the Red Man inhabited the 
country. 

Callao probably forms the northern limit of 
the long strip of coast that has been upheaved, 
and the island of Chiloe the southern limit ; but 
even thus the region of elevation has a length 
from north to south of about 2,480 miles. 

We noticed in the case of Scandinavia that 
the upward movement is greater in the interior 
of the mountain-range than at or near the coast ; 
and it is interesting to find that the same differ- 
ence has been observed in the case of the Andes. 
The upheaving force, whatever its nature, acts 
with more energy under the Chilian Andes than 
under the rocks of the adjacent coast. 

In New Zealand we have also evidences of 
upheaval ; and if we trace out on the map a long 
line from the Friendly Isles and Fiji, through 
the Eastern Archipelago, and then on through 
the Philippine Islands, and finally to Japan 
and the Kurile Islands, we shall find scattered 
regions of elevation all along this great line, 
which is probably a mountain-chain, partly 
submerged, and along which numerous active 
volcanoes are situated. 

Putting together all the evidence that has 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 191 

been gathered on this subject, of which only a 
very small part is here given, we are warranted 
in concluding that taking the world generally, 
regions where active volcanoes exist are gener- 
ally regions where upheaval is taking place. 
There is also a very interesting connection be- 
tween mountain-chains and lines of volcanic 
action. From this it seems to follow, if lines of 
volcanic action are also lines of upheaval, that 
mountain-chains are undergoing upheaval at the 
present time. This is a conclusion in favour of 
which a good deal may be said. It is certainly 
true in the cases of the Scandinavian range, and 
also of a very large part of the Andes, to which 
we have already referred. The Highlands of 
Scotland and Scandinavia form the northern 
end of an old line of volcanic action running 
down the Atlantic Ocean through the Azores, 
Madeira, Cape Verde Islands, Ascension, St. 
Helena, right down to Tristan d'Acunha. 

In many other parts of the world we have 
evidences from submerged forests, the posi- 
tions of certain landmarks with regard to the 
sea, and in some cases submerged towns, that 
movements of a downward nature are taking 
place. 



192 The Story of the Hills. 

It is important to distinguish from these evi- 
dences the changes that take place where the 
waves of the sea are rapidly washing away the 
coast-line. Putting aside these cases, however, 
it has been clearly proved that in many regions 
a slow sinking of the land is going on. 

The eastern side of South America has not 
been so thoroughly observed as its western side ; 
but there is still good reason to believe that a 
large part of this coast is sinking. So it ap- 
pears that a see-saw movement is affecting 
South America, and that while one side is going 
up, the other is going down ; and it is interest- 
ing to observe other examples of the same 
thing, — such as are afforded by Greenland 
and Norway. 

Again, while part of Labrador is rising, parts 
of the eastern coast of North America, as far 
down as Florida, are slowly sinking. Thus 
along the New England coast between New 
York and Maine, and again along the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, we find numerous submerged 
forests with quantities of trees standing upright 
with their roots in old forest-beds, but with the 
tops of their stumps some feet below the level 
of high tide. In the case of New Jersey the 




THE SKAEGGDALFORS, NORWAY. 
From a Photograph by J. Valentine. 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 193 

subsidence is probably taking place at the rate 
of two feet in a hundred years. 

Before passing on to consider upward move- 
ments of a more rapid nature, such as are fre- 
quently caused by earthquakes, we may pause 
for a few moments to consider certain very 
slight, but nevertheless very interesting little 
movements, such as slight pulsations and tremors, 
which have been observed to take place in the 
earth's crust (as it is called), and which of late 
years have been carefully studied. 

Professor Milne, a great authority on earth- 
quakes, has noticed slight swayings of the earth, 
which though occupying a short time — from a 
few seconds to a few hours — are still too slow 
to produce a shock of any kind. These he calls 
" earth pulsations." They have been observed 
by means of delicate spirit-levels, the bubbles of 
which move with very slight changes of level at 
either end of the instrument. At present only 
a few experiments of this kind have been made ; 
but they tell us that the surface of the earth 
(which is apparently so firm and immovable) is 
subject to slight but frequent oscillations. Some 
think that they depend upon changes in the 
weight of the atmosphere. If this is so, the 

13 



194 The Story of the Hills. 

balance between the forces at work below the 
earth's surface and those that operate on its 
surface must be very easily disturbed. Still we 
cannot see that this is a serious objection ; on 
the contrary, there is much reason to think that 
any slight extra weight on the surface, such as 
might be caused by an increase of the pressure 
of the atmosphere, and still more b}^ the ac- 
cumulation of vast sedimentary deposits on the 
floor of the ocean, may be quite sufficient to 
cause a movement to take place. Moreover, Mr. 
G. H. Darwin has shown that the earth's crust 
daily heaves up and down under the attraction 
of the moon in the same kind of way that the 
ocean does ; so that we must give up all idea 
of the solid earth being fixed and immovable, 
and must look upon it as a flexible body, like a 
ball of india-rubber (see chap, ix., pp. 314-315). 
Slight movements of rather a different kind 
have been noticed, to which the name of 
"earth-tremors" has been given. These are 
very slight jarrings or quiverings of the earth, 
too slight to be observed by our unaided senses, 
but rendered visible by means of very delicate 
pendulums and other contrivances. Now wher- 
ever such observations have been made it has 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 195 

been discovered that the earth is constantly 
quivering as if it were a lump of jelly. In 
Italy, where this subject has been very carefully 
studied, the tremors that are continually going 
on are found to vary considerably in strength ; 
for instance, when the weather is very disturbed 
and unsettled, the movements of the pendulum 
are often much greater. Again, before an earth- 
quake the instrument shows that the tremors 
are more frequent and violent. 

Another way of observing these curious 
little movements is by burying microphones in 
the ground. The microphone is a little instru- 
ment invented of late years which is capable 
of enormously magnifying the very slightest 
sounds, such as our ears will not detect. By 
its means one can hear, as some one said, "the 
tramp of a fly's foot," if he will be so obliging 
as to walk over it. It has thus been proved in 
Italy that the earth sends forth a confused 
medley of sounds caused by little crackings and 
snappings in the rocks below our feet. 

In this way it will be possible to predict a 
serious earthquake, because it will give warn- 
ing some days before, by the increase of the 
little tremors and sounds ; and it is to be hoped 



196 The Story of the Hilts. 

that by this simple means human lives may 
be saved. 

Now, these disturbances are of precisely the 
same nature as earthquakes, — in fact, we may 
call them microscopic earthquakes. To the 
geologist they are of great interest, as they 
seem to afford some little insight into the dif- 
ficult question of the upheaval of mountains, 
and to show us something of the constant ivork- 
ing of those wonderful forces below the surface 
of the earth by means of which continents are 
raised up out of the sea, and mountain-chains 
are elevated thousands of feet. It is probable 
that both are due to the working of the same 
forces, and are accomplished by the same 
machinery. 

We now pass on to consider those more violent 
movements of the solid land known as earth- 
quakes. This kind of disturbance is such as 
might be produced by a sudden shock or 
blow given below the ground, from which 
waves travel in all directions. First comes a 
rumbling noise like the roar of distant artillery ; 
then come the earthquake waves one after an- 
other, causing the ground to rise and fall as a 
ship does on the waves of the sea ; the ground 



How the Mountains zvere tip heaved. 197 

is frequently rent asunder, so that chasms are 
formed, into which in some cases men and 
animals have been hurled alive. In the case 
of a very violent earthquake the waves travel 
long distances. Thus the great earthquake by 
which Lisbon was destroyed in the year 1755 
disturbed the waters of Loch Lomond in Scot- 
land. In this fearful catastrophe sixty thousand 
human beings perished. If the disturbance takes 
place near the sea, great sea waves are formed, 
which cause fearful destruction to life and prop- 
erty. This happened in the case of the Lisbon 
earthquake ; and in the year 1868, when Ecuador 
and Peru were visited by a fearful earthquake, 
a great sea wave swept over the port of Arica, 
and in a few minutes every vessel in the 
harbour was either driven ashore or wrecked, 
and a man-of-war was swept inland for a 
quarter of a mile. 

Earthquakes bring about many changes on 
the surface of the earth. For example, on 
mountain-slopes forests are shattered, and 
large masses of soil and debris are shaken 
loose from the rock on which they rested, and 
hurled into the valleys ; streams are thus 
choked up, and sometimes lakes formed, either 



198 The Story of the Hills. 

by the damming up of a river or by the 
subsidence of the ground. 

It is frequently found after an earthquake 
that the level of the ground has been per- 
manently altered ; and this effect of earth- 
quakes is important in connection with the 
subject we are now considering, — namely, how 
mountains are upheaved. Sometimes, it is 
true, the movement is a downward one ; but 
more generally it takes place in an upward 
direction. As an example of this, we may 
mention the Chilian earthquake of 1835, 
which was very violent, and destroyed several 
towns on that coast, from Copiapo to Chile. It 
was afterwards found that the land in the Bay 
of Conception had been raised four or five feet. 
At the island of Santa Maria, to the southwest 
of this bay, the land was raised eight feet, and 
in one part ten feet ; for beds of dead mussels 
were seen at that height above high water, and a 
considerable rocky flat that formerly was covered 
by the sea now became dry land. It was also 
proved by means of soundings that the sea round 
the island was shallower by about nine feet. 

Now the question arises, " How are earth- 
quakes caused ? " Various suggestions have been 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 199 

made ; but it is pretty clear that all earthquakes 
are not produced in the same way. For instance, 
volcanic eruptions are frequently attended by 
earthquakes. Violent shocks of this nature 
generally precede and accompany a great erup- 
tion, as is frequently the case before an eruption 
of Mount Vesuvius. 

Steam plays a very important part in all 
volcanic eruptions ; and these earthquakes are 
probably caused by great quantities of pent- 
up steam at a high pressure struggling to escape. 
It is also possible that when molten rock is 
forcibly injected into the crevices and joints 
of overlying rocks earthquake shocks may be 
produced by the concussion. The old Roman 
poet and philosopher, Lucretius, endeavoured 
to solve this problem, and concluded that " the 
shakings of the surface of the globe are occa- 
sioned by the falling in of enormous caverns 
which time has succeeded in destroying." But 
though the explanation might possibly apply 
to a few cases of small earthquakes, it is not 
a satisfactory one, for it is not at all likely 
that many large cavities exist below the earth's 
surface, because the great weight of the over- 
lying rock would inevitably crush them in. 



200 The Story of the Hills. 

We have already pointed out that earth- 
quakes frequently happen in mountainous re- 
gions ; and this fact alone suggests that perhaps 
the same causes which upheave mountains may 
have something to do with earthquakes. But 
there are other reasons for believing that the 
same force which causes earthquakes also up- 
heaves mountain-chains. The reader will re- 
member the case of the Chilian earthquake that 
raised part of the Andes a few feet in height. 

Now, it is quite clear that the rocks of which 
mountains are composed have suffered a great 
deal of disturbance. We have only to look 
at the crumbled and contorted strata to see 
that they have been forced into all kinds of po- 
sitions, sometimes standing bolt upright (see dia- 
grams, chap, ix., p. 307). And as we cannot 
believe, for many reasons, that these move- 
ments were of a very sudden or violent kind, 
we must consider that they took place slowly 
on the whole ; but besides being folded and 
twisted, the rocks of mountains frequently ex- 
hibit clear signs of having been split and 
cracked. The fractures are of all sizes, from 
an inch or more up to hundreds or even thou- 
sands of feet. They tell us plainly that the 



How the Mountains zvere upheaved. 201 

rocks were once slowly bent, and that after a 
certain amount of bending had taken place, the 
strain put upon them became greater than they 
could bear, and consequently they snapped and 
split along certain lines. This is just what 
might be expe cted For instance, ice on a pond 
will bend a goodoeal, but only up to a certain 
amount ; after that, it cracks in long lines with 
a remarkably sharp and smooth fracture. But 
suppose the pressure came from below instead 
of from above, as when a number of people are 
skating on a pond. Should we not see the ice 
forced up in some places, so that some sheets 
stood up above the others after sliding past 
their broken edges ? This is just what the 
rocks in different places have frequently done. 
After a fracture has taken place the rock on 
one side has slid up over the other, and the 
two surfaces made by the fracture — like two 
long walls — are no longer seen at the same 
level. One has been pushed up, while the other 
has gone down (see diagram of the ranges of 
the Great Basin, chap, viii., p. 273). 

Now, it is almost impossible to conceive of 
these tremendous fractures taking place in the 
rocks below our feet without causing sudden 



202 The Story of the Hills. 

jars or shocks. Here, then, we seem to have a 
clue to the problem. Even if the movements 
took place only a few inches or a few feet at 
a time, that does not spoil our theory, but rather 
favours it ; for in that case the upheaval of a 
mountain-chain will have taken a very long 
time (which is almost certain), and may have 
been accomplished bit by bit. Hundreds and 
thousands of earthquake shocks, some slight, 
and others severe, may have attended the 
upheaval of a mountain-range. 

This explanation is accepted by many author- 
ities. It does not exactly imply that mountains 
were upheaved by earthquakes ; but it means 
that the same forces that elevate continents, 
heaving them up out of the sea into ridges and 
very low arches, have been at work to crumple 
and fold their rocks in some places into stupen- 
dous folds, such as we now find form part of 
the general structure of mountains ; and that 
in so doing they caused fearful strains, too great 
for the rocks to bear, so that they split over 
and over again, and in so doing produced jars 
and shocks that must have been very similar 
to, if not identical with, earthquake shocks as 
we know them at the present day. 



How the Mountains were upheaved. 203 

Such an explanation is in striking harmony 
with what we have already learned about the 
operations of Nature. It was from the long- 
continued operation of rain and rivers that the 
materials now forming mountains were trans- 
ported to the seas in which they were slowly 
formed. It was also by the ordinary opera- 
tions of frost, heat and cold, snow and ice, 
streams, rain, and rivers that the mountains re- 
ceived their present shapes (see chapters v. and 
vii.). And now we learn that the gigantic work 
of upheaval took place in a tolerably quiet and 
uniform manner, — with perhaps only an oc- 
casional catastrophe of a more violent kind, 
but still according to the same law of uniformity 
which is the very basis of modern geology, and 
by means of which so much can be explained. 

We could give other proofs of the gradual 
elevation of mountains if they were wanted. 
But at least enough has been said to give the 
reader a glimpse into the methods employed 
by geologists in endeavouring to explain how 
mountains were upheaved ; and to show that 
it is only by a careful study of all that is taking 
place now on the earth that we can ever hope 
to solve the difficult questions that present them- 



204 The Story of the Hills. 

selves to all who study those stony records on 
which the earth has written for our enlighten- 
ment the chapters of her ancient history. 

In conclusion, it may be asked what is the 
nature of the force that accomplishes all this 
titanic work of upheaval. Although the ques- 
tion has been much discussed, and some very 
ingenious suggestions brought forward, we can- 
not say that any of them are entirely satisfac- 
tory But we know that the earth is a cooling 
body which loses so much heat every year ; and 
it may be that the shrinking that takes place 
as it cools, by leaving the crust of the earth in 
some places unsupported, causes it to settle 
down, to adapt itself to a smaller surface below, 
and in so doing it would inevitably throw itself 
into a series of folds, or wrinkles, like those 
on the skin of a dried apple. Many think 
that mountain-ranges may be explained in 
this way. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW THE MOUNTAINS WEEE CARVED OUT. 

And surely the mountain fadeth away, 
And the rock is removed out of its place, 
The waters wear away the stones : 
The overflowings thereof wash away the dust of the 
earth. 

Job xiv. 18. 

The mighty fortresses of the earth, which seem 
so imperishable, so majestic in their strength, 
and have from time immemorial received their 
title of " the everlasting hills," are nevertheless 
undergoing constant change and decay. They 
cannot abide for ever. Those waste leagues 
around their feet are loaded with the wrecks of 
what once belonged to them ; they are witnesses 
to the victory of the hostile forces that are for 
ever contending with them, and pledges of a 
final triumph. To those who will read their 
story, mountains stand like old dismantled cas- 
tles, mere wrecks of ruined masonry, that have 
nearly crumbled away, telling us of a time when 



206 The Story of the Hills. 

all their separate peaks and crags were one solid 
mass, perhaps an elevated smooth plateau un- 
touched by the rude hand of time. 

Let us now inquire how the work of destruc- 
tion is accomplished. Referring back to our illus- 
tration of the cathedral, given in chap, v., pp. 
143-147, the question we have now to consider is, 
how the mountains were carved out into all these 
wonderful features of crag and precipice, peak 
and pass, which are such a source of delight to 
all who care for scenery. This work we in- 
cluded in the one word u ornamentation." What, 
then, are the tools which Nature uses in this 
work of carving out the hills ? What are her 
axes and hammers, her chisels and saws ? 

This question, like many others, must be an- 
swered by observing what takes place at the 
present day. It is scarcely necessary to say that 
mountains and mountain-ranges are not simply 
the result of upheaval, though they have been 
upheaved. If that were so, they would probably 
appear as long smooth, monotonous ridges, with 
no separate mountain masses, no peaks, no 
glens or vallej^s ; in some cases they might ap- 
pear as simply elevated and smooth plateaux. 
Such mountains, if we may so call them, would 



How the Mountains were carved out. 207 

be almost as uninteresting as the roof of a 
gabled bouse down which the rain finds its 
way in one smooth continuous sheet. 

Mountains, reaching as they do into the higher 
regions of the atmosphere, where the winds 
blow more fiercely than on the plains below, 
storms rage more violently, and the extremes of 
heat and cold are more severe, — in fact, where 
every process of change and decay seems quick- 
ened, — suffer continually at the hands of the 
elements. 

" Death must be upon the hills, and the cruelty of 
the tempests smite them, and the thorn and the briar 
spring up upon them ; but they so smite as to bring 
their rocks into the fairest forms, and so spring as to 
make the very desert blossom as the rose." 1 

Nature never leaves them alone, never gives 
them a brief armistice in the long war that she 
wages against them. She is a relentless enemy, 
ever on the move, and ever varying her methods 
of attack. Now she assails them openly with 
her storm-clouds, and pelts them furiously with 
driving rain ; now we hear the thunder of her 
artillery, as she pierces their crests with strange 

1 Modern Painters, 



208 The Story of the Hills. 

electric darts of fire ; now she secretly under- 
mines their sides with her hidden sources of 
water, till whole villages are destroyed by some 
fearful fall of overhanging rocks (see chapter 
iii., pages 96-101). Her winds and gentle 
breezes are for ever at work on their surfaces, 
causing them to crumble into dust much in 
the same way as iron turns to rust. 

Again, she heats them by day and then chills 
them suddenly at night, under the cold starry 
sky, so that they crack under the strain of ex- 
panding and contracting. Now she splits them 
with her ice-wedges ; now she furrows their sides 
with the dashing torrents and running streams ; 
and yet again she wears them gently down with 
her glaciers, and carries away their debris — the 
token of her triumph — on those icy streams, as 
conquering armies carry the spoils in procession. 

This is, briefly, her mode of warfare ; these 
are some of her tools, wind, rain, frost, snoiv, 
heat and cold, streams, rivers, and glaciers. Light- 
ning does occasionally break off portions of a 
cliff or a mountain-peak ; but compared to the 
others, this agent is not very important. 

Let us first inquire into the effects produced 
by the atmosphere. The air around us is com- 



How the Mountains were carved out. 209 

posed mainly of two well-known gases ; namely, 
oxygen and nitrogen. There is also a small 
proportion (about one in ten thousand) of car- 
bonic acid gas ; a variable quantity of water- 
vapour, and in the neighbourhood of towns, 
traces of other noxious gases, such as sulphur- 
ous acid and chlorine. 

Now, the nitrogen plays a very unimportant 
part, as it merely serves to dilute the powerful 
gas, oxygen, which has such important life-sus- 
taining properties. We live by breathing oxy- 
gen ; so do all animals ; and the more pure air 
we can contrive to get into our lungs, the better. 
But undiluted oxygen would be too strong for 
us, and so its strength is diminished by being 
mixed with four parts of nitrogen ; that is to 
say, the air only contains about one fifth by 
volume, or bulk, of oxygen and four fifths of 
nitrogen. 

Now, oxygen, being always ready to combine 
chemically with some other element, is a great 
agent of change and decay. It attacks all the 
metals except gold and platinum. Iron, we all 
know, oxidises, or rusts, only too quickly ; but 
copper, lead, silver, and other metals are more or 
less attacked by it. So it is with all the rocks 

14 



210 The Story of the Hills. 

exposed at or near the surface of the earth. 
Oxygen will, if it can, pick out something to 
combine with and so bring about chemical 
changes which lead to decay. But a much more 
powerful agent is the carbonic acid gas in the 
atmosphere ; although there is so little of it, 
there is enough to play a very important part 
in causing rocks to crumble away, and in some 
cases to dissolve them entirely. The supply of 
this gas is continually being renewed, for all 
living animals breathe out carbonic acid, and 
plants give it out by night. Under the in- 
fluence of sunlight plants give out oxygen, so 
that gas is supplied to the air by day. 

Both oxygen and carbonic acid gas are dis- 
solved by rain as it falls through the air ; and so 
we cannot separate the effects of the dry air by 
itself from those of rain and mist, which are 
more important agents. The action of rain is 
partly mechanical, partly chemical, for it not 
only beats against them, but it dissolves out cer- 
tain mineral substances that they contain. 

All rocks are mixtures of two or more kinds 
of minerals, the particles of each being often 
invisible to the naked eye. Thus granites are 
essentially mixtures of felspar, quartz, and mica ; 



How the Mountains were carved out. 211 

ordinary volcanic rocks (" trap-rocks ") of felspar 
and augite ; sandstones consist mainly of parti- 
cles of silica ; limestones of carbonate of lime ; 
shales and slates of silicate of alumina, the prin- 
cipal substance in clay. These grains are usually 
joined together by a cement of some mineral 
differing more or less from the other particles. 
Lime is found in many of the rocks as the cement 
that binds their particles together ; while oxide 
of iron and silica serve this purpose in many 
other instances. Now, if the lime or iron or 
silica is dissolved by water, the rock must tend 
to crumble away. Any old building shows more 
or less manifold signs of such decay, and this 
process is called " weathering." All this ap- 
plies merely to the surfaces of rocks ; and if there 
were no other forces at work, their rate of decay 
would be very slow. 

But there are other forces at work. In the 
first place, sudden changes of temperature have a 
destructive influence. If the sun shines brightly 
by day, the rocks — especially in higher moun- 
tain regions — are considerably expanded by the 
heat they receive ; and if a hot day is followed 
by a clear sky at night, the free radiation of 
heat into space (see chap, ii., p. 39) causes them to 



212 The Story of the Hills. 

become very cold, and in cooling down they con- 
tract. In this way an internal strain is set up 
which is often greater than they can bear, and 
so they split and crack. Thus small pieces of 
rock are detached from a mountain-side. An 
Alpine traveller told the writer that one night 
when sleeping on a mountain-side, he heard 
stones rattling down at frequent intervals. Liv- 
ingstone records in his journal that when in the 
desert he frequently heard stones splitting at 
night with a report like that of a pistol. But 
sometimes the expansion by day is sufficient to 
cause fragments of rock to be broken off. 

Frost, however, is responsible for a vast amount 
of destruction among rocks. When water freezes, 
it expands with tremendous force ; and this is the 
reason why water-pipes so frequently burst dur- 
ing a frost, though we don't find it out until 
the thaw comes, — followed by long plumbers' 
bills. Rocks, being traversed in several direc- 
tions by cracks, allow the water to get into 
them, and this in freezing acts like a very pow- 
erful wedge ; and so the rocks on the higher 
parts of the mountains are continually being 
split up by Nature's ice-wedge. 

The amount of rock broken up in this way 



How the Mountains were carved out. 213 

every year is enormous. Stone walls and build- 
ings often suffer greatly from this cause during 
a long frost, especially if the stone be of a more 
than usually porous kind, that can take up a 
good deal of rain water. 

Where trees, shrubs, etc., grow on rocks, the 
roots find their way into its natural divisions, 
widened by the action of rain soaking down into 
them ; and as they grow, they slowly widen them, 
and in time portions are actually detached in 
this manner. Moreover, the roots and rootlets 
guide the rain water down into the cracks, or 
joints, as they are called. Even the ivy that 
creeps over old ruined walls has a decidedly 
destructive effect. 

At the base of every steep mountain may be 
seen heaps of loose angular stones ; sometimes 
these are covered with soil, and form long slopes 
on which trees and shrubs grow. Every one of 
the numerous little gullies that furrow the moun- 
tain-sides has at its lower end a similar little 
heap of stones. Sometimes a valley among the 
mountains seems half choked with rocky frag- 
ments ; and if these were all removed, the valley 
would be deeper than it is. In some hot coun- 
tries, where the streams only flow in winter, 



214 The Story of the Hills. 

this is especially the case; for example, ever}' 
valley, or " wady," in the region of Mount Sinai 
and Mount Horeb is more or less choked up with 
boulders and stones of every size, because the 
stones come down faster than they can be carried 
away. 

But the main work of carving out the hills 
and mountains of the world is done by streams, 
rivers, and glaciers ; and so we now pass on to 
consider how they perform their tasks. Water 
by itself, even when flowing fast, would be pow- 
erless to carve gorges and valleys in the solid 
rock ; but the stones which torrents and streams 
carry along give them a marvellous grinding 
power, for with such material a stream continu- 
ally wears away its rocky bed. Moreover, the 
stones themselves are all the while being rubbed 
down by each other, until finally they are ground 
down to fine sand and mud, which help in the 
work of erosion. 

Every mountain stream or torrent runs in 
a ravine or valley of some sort ; and any trav- 
eller who will take the trouble to watch what 
goes on there may easily convince himself 
that the ravine, gorge, or valley has been 
carved out by the stream, aided by the atmos- 



How the Mountains were carved out. 215 

pheric influences to which we have already 
alluded. 

But perhaps some may be inclined to look 
upon the ravine as a chasm produced by some 
violent disturbance from below, whereby the 
rocks were rent asunder, and that the stream 
somehow found its way into the rent. A little 
inquiry will dispel this idea. In the first place, 
such catastrophes are quite unknown at the 
present day ; and as we have more than once 
pointed out, the geologist's method is to apply 
a knowledge of processes now in operation to 
the phenomena of the rocks, in order to read 
their history. Secondly, no conclusion can be 
accepted which is not supported strongly by 
evidence. 

If such a rending of the rocks had taken 
place, there would assuredly be some evidence 
of the fact. We should expect to find a great 
crack running all along the bed of the stream ; 
but of this there is no sign. Go down in any 
weather when the stream is low, and look at the 
rocks over which it flows, and you will search 
in vain for such evidence. Instead of being 
broken, the rocks extend continually across. 
You would also expect to find the strata " dip- 



216 The Story of the Hills. 

ping," or sloping away from the stream on 
each side, if they had been rent by such an 
upheaval ; but here again we are met by a 
total want of evidence. Thirdly, a crack might 
be expected to run along more or less evenly 
in one direction. But look at the ravine, fol- 
low it up for some miles, and you will see that 
it winds along in a very devious course, not in 
a straight line. 

For these reasons, then, we must conclude that 
the ravine or valley has been carved out by the 
stream ; but perhaps the most convincing argu- 
ments are afforded by the furrows and miniature 
ravines so frequently met with on the sides of 
all mountains ; and it is impossible to exam- 
ine these without concluding that they have 
in every case been cut out of the solid rock by 
the little rapid torrents that run along them 
after heavy rain. If we are fortunate enough 
to see them -on a thoroughly rainy day, we 
may derive much instruction from watching 
the little torrents at work as they run down 
the mountain-side, here and there dashing 
over the rocks in little cascades, and bringing 
down to the base of the hill much of the 
debris that forms higher up. Tn this way 



How the Mountains were carved out. 217 

Nature gives us an "object lesson/" and seems 
to say : " Watch me at work here, and learn 
from such little operations how I work on a 
larger scale, and carve out my ravines and 
big valleys. Only give me plenty of time, 
and I can accomplish much greater feats than 
this." 

The question of time is no longer disputed ; 
and all geologists are willing to grant almost 
unlimited time, at least periods of time that 
seem to us unlimited. Most streams have been 
flowing for thousands of years ; and when once 
we grant that, we find no difficulty in believing 
that all valleys are the work of rain and rivers. 
Surely no one would argue that the furrows on 
a mountain-side are all rents which have been 
widened by the action of water ; for if they 
were rents, each must have been caused by 
some disturbance of the rocks composing the 
mountain, and we should of course be able to 
see the cracks for ourselves, and to find that 
the rocks had in some way been disturbed 
and rent open. 

Even the rain which falls on the road in a 
heavy shower teaches the same simple but 
important lesson, as it runs off into the gut- 



218 The Story of the Hills. 

ters on each side ; and we may often find the 
road furrowed by little miniature rivers, that 
carve out for themselves tiny valley's as they 
run off into the gutter, bringing with them 
much debris in the form of mud and sand. 

Sometimes a stream encounters in its course 
a layer of rock that is harder than the rock un- 
derlying it. In this case the softer rock is worn 
away faster, and the hard layer forms a kind of 
ridge at a higher level; the result is a water- 
fall. Waterfalls are frequently found in moun- 
tain streams. In this case, it is easy to trace 
the ridge of harder rock running unbroken 
across the path of the stream, showing clearly 
that it has not been rent in any way. First 
it showed merely as a kind of step, but grad- 
ually the force of the falling water told with 
greater effect on the softer rock below, wear- 
ing it away more rapidly than that above, 
and so the depth of the waterfall went on in- 
creasing year by year ; and at the same time 
the hard layer was slowly worn away until 
the stream sawed its way through. 

Some river valleys are steep and narrow ; 
others are broad, with gently sloping sides. 
A careful study of the different valleys in any 



How the Mountains were carved out. 219 

large country such as Great Britain, shows 
that their forms vary according to the nature 
of the rocks through which rivers flow. Where 
hard rocks abound, the valleys are steep and 
narrow ; where soft rocks occur, the valleys 
are broad and low. This is only what might 
be expected, for hard rocks are not easily worn 
away ; a river must cut its way through them, 
leaving cliffs on either side that cannot be 
wasted away by rain. But in a district where 
clay or soft sandstone occurs, the rain, as it 
finds its way to the valley, will wash them 
away and give a smooth gentle slope to the 
sides of the valley. 

It is very instructive to notice how the 
scenery of any district depends on the na- 
ture of its prevailing rocks. Hard rocks give 
bold scenery with steep hills and rocky de- 
files ; while soft rocks make the landscape com- 
paratively flat and tame, though often very 
beautiful in its way, especially where a rich 
soil abounds, so that we see pleasant woods, 
rich pasture-land, and heavy crops in the 
fields. 

Compare, for instance, the scenery of Kent 
or Surrey with that of the Lake District or 



220 The Story of the Hills. 

the west of Yorkshire. The difference is due 
chiefly to the fact that in Kent and Surrej* 
we have rocks that succumb more easily to 
the action of rain and rivers, and consequently 
are worn away more rapidly than the harder 
rocks in the north country. Geologists have 
a word to express the effects of this wear 
and tear; namely, "denudation/' which means 
a stripping off, or laying bare. 

In Kent and Surrey the agents of denudation 
(rain and rivers, aided by the effects of the 
air, of heat and cold, and so on) wear away 
the whole surface of the country in a tolera- 
bly even and uniform manner, because there 
are no hard rocks for them to contend with. 
In this case rain washes away the sides of 
the valleys faster than the river can carve its 
bed, consequently the valleys are shallow com- 
pared to their width. And so the streams 
have broad valleys, while the hills are smooth 
and gently rounded. Chalk, clay, and soft 
sandstone abound there. The two latter rocks 
are washed away with comparative ease, and 
the chalk is dissolved ; whereas in the Lake 
District we have very much harder and older 
rocks, that require to be split up and broken 



How the Mountains were carved otit. 221 

by the action of frost, while every stream 
carves out for itself a steep valley, and great 
masses of hard rock stand out as bold hills 
or mountains, that seem to defy all the agents 
of denudation. Here the opposite is the case, 
and the valleys are deepened faster than they 
are widened. But for all that, a vast amount 
of solid rock has been removed from the sur- 
face there, of which the mountains are, as it 
were, but fragments that have escaped the gen- 
eral destruction. Moreover, the rocks in this 
region have been greatly disturbed and crum- 
pled since they were first formed, and thereby 
thrown into various shapes that give certain 
peculiar structures more or less capable of 
resisting denudation. 

Very effective illustrations of the power of 
rain by itself are afforded by the " earth 
pillars" of the Tyrol, and "canons" of Col- 
orado. The material of which they consist 
is called conglomerate, because it is com- 
posed of stones and large blocks of rock with 
stiff earth or clay between. All the taller 
ones have a big stone on the top which pro- 
tects the softer material below from being 
washed away by heavy rains ; and it is easily 



222 The Story of the Hills. 

perceived that each pillar owes its existence 
to the stone on the top, which prevents the 
soft materials below it from being washed 
away. When, after a time, the weathering of 
the soft strata diminishes the support of the 
capping boulders, these at last topple over, 
and the pillar, thus left unprotected, becomes 
an easy prey to the rain, and is rapidly washed 
away. Some of the pillars are over a hun- 
dred feet in height. But it is only in places 
where heavy rains fall that these interesting 
monuments of denudation are to be seen. 

By way of contrast we may turn now to a 
district in which very little rain falls, but 
where the streams have a considerable slope, 
and so can wear away, or erode, their val- 
leys much faster than rain and frost, etc., can 
bring down the rocks of which the sides are 
composed. 

The river Colorado of the West, which runs 
from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of 
California, flows for nearly three hundred miles 
at the bottom of a profound chasm, or canon, 
being hemmed in by vertical walls which in 
some places are more than a mile in depth. 
The tributary streams flowing into the river 



How the Mountains were carved out. 223 

run through smaller ravines forming side 
canons ; and there is no doubt that these won- 
derful chasms have been, in the course of 
ages, slowly carved out by the river Colorado 
and its numerous tributary streams. Some- 
times the walls of the canon are not more 
than fifty yards apart, and in height they vary 
from three thousand to six thousand feet. 

Far above the level of the highest floods 
patches of gravel are found here and there 
on the sides, which must have been left there 
by the river when it had not cut its way so 
far down. These canons afford striking testi- 
mony to the erosive power of running water, 
of which they are the most wonderful illus- 
tration in the world. 

But water, even when in the form of ice, 
has more or less power to wear away solid 
rock ; and the glaciers that we see in Switzer- 
land, Norway, and other countries must slightly 
deepen the rocky valleys down which they flow. 
Let us see how this can be accomplished. 

The snow that falls in the High Alps, im- 
pelled by the weight of fresh layers of snow 
overlying it, and by the slope of the mountain- 
sides, gradually creeps down into the valleys. 



224 The Story of the Hills. 

Owing to the pressure thus put upon it, and 
partly to the melting power of the sun's rays, 
it assumes the form of ice ; and glaciers are 
composed of solid ice. The downward motion 
is so slow that a glacier appears quite station- 
ary ; and it is only by putting in stakes and 
watching them change their positions that it 
can be shown to be moving. 

In all respects except speed, glaciers flow 
like rivers, for ice is a viscous body, behaving 
partly like a fluid and yet partly like a solid 
substance ; but it will not endure a sharp 
bend without snapping. Hence, a glacier in 
traversing a valley frequently gets split. The 
cracks thus formed widen by degrees until 
they expand into chasms, or '-crevasses." Like 
rivers, glaciers transport a large amount of 
rocky matter to lower levels, and at the 
same time wear away and deepen their rocky 
channels. 

Let us see how they do this twofold work of 
transportation and erosion. In the first place, a 
large amount of debris falls onto the sides of a 
glacier from the peaks, precipices, and mountain- 
side along which it flows. Some stones, how- 
ever, fall down crevasses, and so reach the bot- 



How the Mountains were carved out. 225 

torn, where they become cemented in the ice. In 
this way they are slowly carried down over the 
rocky floor of the valley, until at last they reach 
the end of the glacier, where in the warmer air 
the ice melts just as fast as it creeps down ; and 
there they will be left to form a heap of stones, 
sand, and mud. 

Large blocks of stone, quite different from the 
rocks on which they lie, are very numerous, and 
are called " erratics," since they are evidently 
wanderers from a distance. Sometimes such 
blocks can be proved to have been brought 
many miles from their home among the higher 
peaks. The long lines of stones and mud seen 
on the sides of a glacier are called " mo- 
raines," and at the end of every glacier we find 
a big heap known as a "terminal moraine." 
But the stones of which they are composed are 
probably not to be entirely accounted for in this 
way Can we not conceive that the weight and 
pressure of a descending glacier may be sufficient 
to break off many protruding portions of the 
rocky bed over which it flows, and then to drag 
them along with it ? This seems reasonable. 
Let us therefore consider the materials of which 
moraines are composed to be derived parti}' from 

15 



226 The Story of the Hills. 

the rocks beneath and partly from those above 
the glacier. But whatever their origin, such 
materials must inevitably find their way to the 
end of the glacier and be added to the big heap 
there. The work of transportation is then taken 
up by the stream which always flows from the 
end of a glacier. Such streams are in summer- 
time laden with fine sediment, which gives them 
a milky and turbid appearance. 

Thus a glacier wears away the rocks over 
which it flows ; rock fragments become em- 
bedded in the ice, and these are the tools with 
which a glacier does its work. It must be 
granted that the downward movement of a 
great mass of ice is irresistible, and conse- 
quently that as the moving glacier slowly 
creeps along, it must inevitably cause the stones 
which it thus holds to grind over the surface of 
the rock. It is easy to imagine the effects of 
this grinding action. If sand-paper, rubbed for 
a minute or two over wood, wears down and 
smooths its surface, what must be the result of 
all these stones, together with sand and mud, 
grinding over the rocky bed ? 

The answer to this question is found in ex- 
amining the rocks over which glaciers once 



Hozv the Mountains were carved out. 227 

flowed. Now, the Swiss glaciers once extended 
far beyond their present limits ; and the rocks in 
the lower parts of their present valleys, now 
free from ice, show unmistakable signs of hav- 
ing been considerably worn down. The corners 
and angles of projecting pieces of rock have 
been worn away until the once rugged outline 
has become wavy and round, so much so as to 
produce more or less resemblance to the backs of 
sheep lying clown. Hence the name roches mou- 
tonnees, by which rocks of this shape are known. 
They frequently retain on their surface peculiar 
markings, such as long scratches and grooves 
which must have been made as the old glacier, 
with its embedded angular fragments of rock, 
slowly ground over their surfaces. Such mark- 
ings are called "strise.'' But besides these glacial 
records graven on the rocks, we have other 
evidence, in the form of great moraines in some 
of the valleys of Switzerland, and especially at 
those places where side valleys open out into a 
main valley Any one may learn by a little 
observation to recognise these peculiar heaps of 
stones, mud, and sand, deposited long ago by the 
old glaciers of Switzerland. 

It will be perceived that the evidence for the 



228 The Story of the Hills. 

erosive power of glaciers is of two kinds, — 
first, there is the testimony of the smoothed and 
striated rocks, which is very convincing ; sec- 
ondly, the equally strong proofs from the mo- 
raines, both great and small. These old rubbish 
heaps give us a very fair idea of the amount of 
wear and tear that goes on under a glacier, for 
there we see the rock fragments that tumbled 
down the mountain-side onto the surface of the 
glacier (together with those which the glacier 
tore off its rocky bed), all considerably smoothed, 
worn down, and striated. But a still better idea 
of the work done is afforded by the gravel, mud, 
and sand in which these stones are embedded. 
All this finer material must have been the result 
of wear and tear. This kind of action may well 
be compared to what takes place on a grindstone 
as one sharpens an axe on it. The water poured 
on the stone soon becomes muddy, owing to the 
presence of countless little grains of sand worn 
off the grindstone. But a good deal of the mud 
thus formed is carried away by the little stream 
that runs out from the end of every glacier ; so 
that there is more formed than we see in the 
moraine. 

We have already alluded in former chapters 



How the Mountains were carved out. 22§ 

to the " Ice Age " in Britain, when great glaciers 
covered all our high mountains, and descended 
far and wide over the plains. Now, the evidence 
for the former existence of these glaciers is of 
the same kind as that which we have just de- 
scribed. In Wales and Scotland we may soon 
learn to recognise the roches moutonnees, the old 
moraine heaps, and the erratic boulders brought 
down by these old glaciers. Besides these proofs, 
there is also the evidence of the arctic plants now 
flourishing in the highlands (see chapter iv., 
pages 123-124). 

There can be no doubt, then, that glaciers have 
an erosive action, and therefore must be re- 
garded as agents of denudation. But it is im- 
portant to bear in mind that their powers in this 
direction are limited ; for it is manifest that a 
mountain stream is a much more powerful agent, 
and will deepen its little valley much more 
rapidly, than a cumbrous, slow-moving glacier, 
advancing at the rate of a few inches a day. It 
has been found by careful measurements that 
the Mer de Glace of Chamouni moves during 
summer and autumn at the average daily rate of 
twenty to twenty -seven inches in the centre, and 
thirteen to nineteen and one half inches near the 



230 The Story of the Hills. 

side, where friction somewhat impedes its course. 
This seems very slow compared to the rapid 
movement of a mountain stream ; but then, a 
glacier partly makes up for this by its great 
weight. 

In considering a glacier as an agent of erosion, 
we must not forget that probably a good deal of 
water circulates beneath glaciers. If this is so, 
the water must have a considerable share in pro- 
ducing the effects to which we have already 
alluded. It would be extremely rash to con- 
clude, as some students of glaciers have done, 
that valleys can be carved out entirely by glaciers ; 
and we must be content with believing that they 
have been somewhat deepened by ice-action, 
and their features more or less altered, but no 
more. The valleys of Switzerland, of Wales, 
and Scotland, were probably all in existence be- 
fore the period of the " Ice Age," having been 
carved out by streams in the usual way ; but the 
glaciers, as it were, put the final touches and 
smoothed their surfaces. 

Having learned how the three agents of denu- 
dation — namely, rain, rivers, and glaciers — ac- 
complish their work, let us now take a wider view 
of the subject and consider the results of their 



How the Mountains were carved out. 231 

united efforts both in the present and in the 
past. 

We have already alluded to the enormous 
amount of solid matter brought clown to the 
sea every year by rivers (see chap, v., pp. 166— 
168), and we pointed out that all this represents 
so much debris swept off the land through 
which the rivers flow ; also that it comes 
down in three ways, one part being suspended 
in the water as fine mud, another part being 
pushed along the river-bed as gravel, etc., 
while a third part is the carbonate of lime 
and other mineral matter in a dissolved state, 
and therefore invisible. 

Now, it is quite plain that rain and rivers, in 
sweeping away so much solid matter from the 
surface of the land, must tend in the course of 
time to lower its general level ; and it therefore 
seems to follow that after the lapse of ages any 
given continent or large island might be entirely 
washed away, or in other words, reduced to the 
level of the sea. This would certainly happen 
were it not that the lands of the world seem 
to be slowly rising, so that the denudation going 
on at the surface appears to be counterbalanced 
by continued upheaval. 



232 The Story of the Hills. 

But, supposing no upheaval took place, how 
long would it take for rain and rivers to wear 
away a whole continent ? Let us see if there is 
any way of answering this difficult question, for 
if it can be even partially solved, it will help us 
to realise the enormous length of time that must 
have been required to bring about the results of 
denudation that we see all around us. 

Although the calculations that have been 
made on this subject are very complicated, yet 
the principle on which they are based is quite 
simple. For an answer to our question we 
must go to the rivers again, and measure the 
work they do in transporting solid matter 
down to the sea. Let us take the Mississippi as 
a typical big river, for it has been more carefully 
studied than any other, and it drains a very 
extensive area, embracing many varieties of 
climate, rock, and soil. As the result of many 
observations carried on continuously at differ- 
ent parts of the river for months together, the 
engineers who conducted the investigation found 
that the annual discharge of water by this river 
is about nineteen thousand millions of cubic feet, 
and that on the average the amount of sediment 
it contains is about a i^oo th P ar ^ ^ weight. 



How the Mountains were carved out. 233 

But besides the matter in suspension, they ob- 
served that a large amount of sand, gravel, and 
stones is being constantly pushed along the bot- 
tom of the river. This they estimated at over 
seven hundred and fifty millions of cubic feet. 
They also calculated that the Mississippi brings 
down every year more than eight hundred thou- 
sand million pounds of mud. Putting the two 
together, they found (as before stated) that the 
amount of solid matter thus transported down 
to the Gulf of Mexico may be represented by a 
layer 268 feet high, covering a space of one 
square mile ; that is, without allowing for what 
is brought down dissolved in the water, which 
may be neglected in order to prevent any 
exaggeration. 

Now, it is quite clear that all this debris must 
have come from the immense area that is drained 
by the Mississippi. It could not have been sup- 
plied by any rivers except those that are its trib- 
utaries. And so if we can find out what is the 
extent of this area, it is not difficult to calculate 
how much its general surface must have been 
lowered, or in other words, how much must have 
been worn away from it in order to supply all 
the material. This area is reckoned at 1,147,000 



234 The Story of the Hills. 

square miles ; and a very simple calculation 
tells us that the general surface would thus 
be lowered to the extent of goVo 111 P ar ^ °f a 
foot. That of course means that one foot 
would be worn away in six thousand years. On 
high ground and among mountains the rate 
of denudation would of course be much greater ; 
but we are now dealing with an average for 
the whole surface. 

The next thing we require to finish this 
calculation is the average or mean height of 
the American continent. This was reckoned 
by the celebrated Humboldt at 748 feet. Now 
if we may assume that all this continent is being 
worn down at the same rate of one foot in six 
thousand years (which is a reasonable assump- 
tion), we find, by a simple process of multipli- 
cation, that it would require about four and a 
half millions of years for rain and rivers to 
wash it all away until its surface was all at the 
sea-level (with perhaps a few little islands 
projecting here and there as relics of its vast 
denudation). This is a very interesting result ; 
and if the above measurements are reliable, 
they afford us some idea of the rate at which 
denudation takes place at the present time. 



How the Mountains were carved out. 235 

By a similar process it has been calculated the 
British Isles might be levelled in about five and 
a half millions of years. Geologists do not pre- 
tend to have solved this problem accurately ; 
that is impossible with our present knowledge. 
But even as rough estimates these results are 
very valuable, especially when we come to study 
the structure of the land in different countries, 
and to find out therefrom, by actual measure- 
ment, how much solid rock has been removed. 
We will now give some examples of this ; but 
perhaps a simple illustration will make our 
meaning clearer. 

Suppose we picked up an old pair of boots, and 
found the soles worn away in the centre. It 
would be easy to find out how much had been 
worn away over the holes by simply measuring 
the thickness of leather at the sides, where we 
will suppose that they were protected by strong 
nails. Geologists apply a very similar kind of 
method in order to find out how much rock has 
been removed from a certain region of the 
earth. One of the simplest cases of this kind 
is that of the area known as the Weald of Kent, 
Surrey, and Sussex (see illustration, Fig. 1). 
A great deal of denudation has taken place 



236 



The Story of the Hills. 



i i 



tf 



^ 



How the Mountains were carved out. 237 

here, because there is ample evidence to prove 
that the great "formation" known as the Chalk 
(now seen in the North and South Downs) once 
stretched right across ; and below this came 
the lower greensand and Weald clay. They 
spread over this area in a low arch of which we 
now only see the ruins. 

The dotted lines in the figure show us their 
former extent ; but the vertical height is exag- 
gerated, for otherwise the hills would scarcely 
be seen. 

These lines simply follow out the curves 
taken by the strata at each end of the denuded 
arch, and therefore rightly indicate its former 
height. By making such a drawing on a true 
scale, geologists can easily measure the former 
height of the surface of this old arch, or " anti- 
cline," of chalk, greensand, and other strata, 
just as an architect might restore the outlines 
of an old traceried window from a few portions 
left at the sides. 

This very useful and instructive method is 
much employed in drawing sections through 
mountain-chains, in order to gain some idea 
of the amount of denudation which they have 
suffered. 



238 The Story of the Hills. 

Let us see how much has been removed from 
the present surface of the Weald. First there 
is the chalk, which we may put down at six hun- 
dred feet at least ; then there is the lower green- 
sand, say, eight hundred feet ; and below that, 
and forming the lowest ground in the Weald, is 
the Weald clay, which is one thousand feet 
thick, and being softer, was more rapidly borne 
away. Along the centre runs a ridge of Hast- 
ings sand, forming higher ground on account 
of its greater hardness, but this formation is 
not much denuded. However, adding together 
the thicknesses of the others, we arrive at the 
conclusion that about twenty-four hundred feet 
of chalk and other strata has been removed 
from the present surface of the Weald. And all 
this denudation has probably been effected by 
rain and rivers, for it is very doubtful whether 
the sea had any share in this work. 

But in other parts of our own country we 
find proofs of denudation on a much grander 
scale than this ; for example, in North Wales 
there are rocks now lying exposed at the sur- 
face which are of a very much greater antiquity 
than any that may be seen in the Wealden area, 
belonging to the very ancient periods known as 



How the Mountains were carved out. 239 

the Cambrian and Silurian. These have evi- 
dently been exposed for a much longer time 
to the action of denuding forces; and the Welsh 
hills, as we now see them, are but fragments 
of what they once were. After carefully map- 
ping out the rocks in the neighbourhood of 
Snowdon, noting their thickness, the directions 
in which they slope, or " dip," so that the struc- 
ture of this region might be ascertained, as in 
the case of the Weald, it was found, on drawing 
sections of the rocks there, and putting in dotted 
lines to continue the curves and slopes of the 
strata as known at or near the surface, that 
from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand feet 
of solid rock must have been removed (see dia- 
grams, chapter ix., p. 307). Applying the same 
method to the Lake District, it has been calcu- 
lated that the amount of denudation which 
that beautiful country has suffered may be rep- 
resented by twenty-six thousand feet. Turning 
to the other side of the Atlantic, we find the 
American geologists estimate that a thickness 
of five miles has been removed from a large 
part of the Appalachian chain of mountains 
(near their east coast), and that at least one 
mile has been eroded from the entire region 



240 The Story of the Hills. 

between the Rocky and Wahsatch Mountains 
(see chapter ix.). 

In conclusion, we must bear in mind that 
mountains, in spite of the enormous erosion they 
have suffered, are more capable of resisting the 
ever active agents of denudation than the softer 
rocks that form the plains and lowlands, and 
consequently stand out in bold relief from other 
features of the earth's surface. This truth has 
been beautifully expressed in the following 
passage : — 

"... In order to bring the world into the form 
which it now bears, it was not mere sculpture that 
was needed ; the mountains could not stand for a day 
unless they were formed of materials altogether dif- 
ferent from those which constitute the lower hills and 
the surfaces of the valleys. A harder substance had 
to be prepared for every mountain-chain, yet not so 
hard but that it might be capable of crumbling down 
into earth, fit to nourish the Alpine forest and the 
Alpine flowers ; not so hard but that in the midst of 
the utmost majesty of its enthroned strength there 
should be seen on it the seal of death, and the writing 
of the same sentence that had gone forth against the 
human frame, ' Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt 
return.' And with this perishable substance the most 
majestic forms were to be framed that were consistent 



How the Mountains were carved out. 241 

with the safety of man, and the peak was to be lifted 
and the cliff rent as high and as steeply as was possi- 
ble, in order yet to permit the shepherd to feed his 
flocks upon the slope, and the cottage to nestle beneath 
their shadow." 1 

1 Modern Painters. 



16 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VOLCANIC MOUNTAINS. 

' T is said Enceladus' huge frame, 

Heart-stricken by the avenging flame, 

Is prisoned here, and underneath 

Gasps through each vent his sulphurous breath; 

And still as his tired side shifts round, 

Trinacia echoes to the sound 

Through all its length, while clouds of smoke 

The living soul of ether choke. 

Virgil: JEneid in. 

In some parts of the world we meet with moun- 
tains of a very different kind from any we have 
yet considered, — mountains that are known at 
times to send forth fiery streams of glowing 
lava, and to emit with terrific force great clouds 
of steam. Such mountains have long been 
known, in popular but unscientific language, as 
" burning mountains," 1 — a term which is unfor- 
tunate, because they do not burn in the proper 
sense of the word, like candles or gas-jets. 
They are better known as volcanoes. There 
are about three hundred and fifty known active 

1 See papers by the writer on Volcanoes and Volcanic Action 
in "Knowledge " for May and June, 1891, on which this chapter 
is partly based. 



Volcanic Mountains. 243 

volcanoes ; and if we include all mountains that 
once were in that state, the number is about one 
thousand. 

Such mountains are connected in a curious way 
with those upheaved ridges of the world known 
as mountain-chains (see chap, vi., p. 191). And 
not only are many mountains more or less pene- 
trated and intersected by rocks of an igneous 
origin (see chap, v., p. 155), but some have been 
largely formed by the action of old volcanoes. 
In fact, there are hills in Great Britain and 
parts of Europe, in America, and other countries, 
that once were actual volcanoes (see page 277). 

We must briefly consider these strange moun- 
tains so different from others, and see what we can 
find out about them. Let us first inquire how a 
volcano is made, then consider what a volcano 
does ; that is, we must view it as a geological 
agent that has a certain definite part to play in 
the economy of the world. And lastly, we may 
glance at some of the old volcanoes, and see what 
they were doing in those long ages of the world 
during which the great series of the stratified 
rocks were formed, — which rocks are, as it w r ere, 
the book in which the earth has written her 
autobiography. 



244 The Story of the Hills. 

In old days volcanoes were regarded with 
superstitious awe ; and any investigation of 
their actions would have been considered rash 
and impious in the highest degree. Mount Etna, 
as Virgil tells us, was supposed to mark the spot 
where the angry gods had buried Enceladus, 
one of the rebellious giants. Volcano, a certain 
"burning mountain" in the Lipa Islands, was 
likewise called the forge, or workshop, of Vulcan 
(or Volcan), the god of fire. And so it comes 
about that all " burning mountains " take their 
name from this one Mediterranean island, and 
at the same time tell us of the mythological 
origin of the word. It has been said that words 
are " fossil thoughts ;" and we have here an old 
and very much fossilised thought, — a kind of 
thought long since extinct among civilised 
peoples, and one which is never likely to come 
to life again. 

A volcanic mountain consists of alternating 
sheets of lava and volcanic ashes, mantling 
over each other in an irregular way, and all 
sloping away from the centre. In the centre 
is a pit or chimney, widening out towards the 
top so as to resemble a funnel or cup ; hence 
the name '-crater," which means a cup. In 



Volcanic Mountains. 245 

the centre of this crater a very small cone 
("minor cone") is frequently found; and it 
is interesting to find that many of the moon's 
volcanic craters possess these " minor cones." 
A number of cracks or fissures intersect the 
volcano. These frequently spread out from 
the centre of the mountain in all directions, 
like the spokes of a wheel. They generally 
get filled with lava that wells up from below, 
thus forming "dykes," which may be regarded 
as so many sheets of igneous rock, such as 
basalt, that have forced their way while still 
liquid in among the layers of lava and ashes. 
The word "ash" is used by geologists in a spe- 
cial sense ; and volcanic ash is not, as might 
be supposed, a deposit of cinders, but mostly 
of dust of various degrees of fineness, and 
sometimes it is very fine indeed. Pieces of 
pumice-stone may be embedded in a layer 
of volcanic ash, and sometimes great blocks 
of stone that have been shot out of the vol- 
cano as from a big gun, but these only form 
a small part of the layer. Dykes strengthen 
the mountain, and tend to hold it together 
when violently shaken during an eruption. 
The shape and steepness of a volcano de- 



246 The Story of the Hills. 

pend on the nature of the materials ejected. 
The finer the volcanic ash, the steeper and 
more conical is the mountain. The building 
up of a volcano may be fairly illustrated by 
the little cone of sand formed in an hour- 
glass as the sand-grains fall. These settle 
down at a certain slope, or angle, at which 
they can remain, instead of falling down to 
the bottom, as they do directly this slope is 
exceeded. Some volcanoes are built up almost 
entirely of volcanic ash and its embedded 
blocks. Vesuvius, Teneriffe, Jorullo, in Mex- 
ico, and Cotopaxi, in the Ancles, are exam- 
ples of steep volcanic cones built up in this 
way. Others, less steep and more irregular 
in shape, are chiefly formed of successive 
lava-flows. Little minor cones are frequently 
formed on the side of a volcano ; and these 
during an eruption give rise to small out- 
bursts of their own. They are easily ac- 
counted for by the dykes which are mentioned 
just now ; for when molten rock forces its 
way through fissures, it sometimes finds an 
outlet at the surface, and being full of steam, 
as soda-water is full of gas, it gives rise to 
an eruption. The great opening in the centre 



Volcanic Mountains. 247 

of a volcano, with its molten lava, is like a 
very big dyke that has reached the surface 
and so succeeded in producing an eruption. 

The opening of a soda-water bottle not in- 
frequently illustrates a volcanic eruption ; for 
when the pent-up carbonic acid cannot escape 
fast enough, it forces out some of the water, 
even when the bottle is held upright. 

Every volcano has been built up on a plat- 
form of ordinary stratified rocks ; and at some 
period after these had been laid down in 
water and raised up into dry land, molten 
rock found its way through them, and so the 
volcano was built up by successive eruptions 
during many years. It is probable that earth- 
quake shocks, preceding the first eruption, 
cracked up these strata, and so made a way 
for the lava to come up. 

The main point we wish to emphasize is 
that volcanoes are never formed by upheaval. 
In this way they differ from all other moun- 
tains. They have not been made by the heav- 
ing up of strata, but have been gradually 
piled up, something like rubbish heaps that 
accumulate in the Thames barges as the dust- 
men empty their carts into them, only in the 



248 The Story of the Hills. 

case of volcanoes the " rubbish " comes from 
below. It is not necessary to suppose that 
the reservoir down below, from which the mol- 
ten rock is supplied, exists at any very great 
depth below the original land surface on 
which the volcano grows up. 

The old "upheaval theory" of volcanoes, 
once advocated by certain authorities, instead 
of being based on actual evidence or on rea- 
soning from facts, was a mere guess. More- 
over, if the explanation we have given should 
not be sufficiently convincing, there is good 
proof furnished by the case of a small vol- 
cano near Vesuvius, the building of which 
was actually witnessed. It is called Monte 
Nuovo, or the New Mountain. It is a little 
cone 430 feet high, on the bank of Lake 
Averno, with a crater more than a mile and a 
half wide at the base. It was almost entirely 
formed during a single night in the year 
1538, a. d. We have two accounts of the 
eruption to which it owes its existence ; and 
each writer says distinctly that the mountain 
was formed by the falling of stones and 
ashes. 

One witness says, — 



Volcanic Mountains. 249 

" Stones and ashes were thrown up with a noise 
like the discharge of great artillery, in quantities 
which seemed as if they would cover the whole 
earth ; and in four days their fall had formed a 
mountain in the valley between Monte Barbaro and 
Lake Averno, of not less than three miles in cir- 
cumference, and almost as high as Monte Barbaro 
itself, — a thing incredible to those who have not 
seen it, that in so short a time so considerable a 
mountain should have been formed." 

Another says, — 

" Some of the stones were larger than an ox. 
The mud (ashes mixed with water) was at first 
very liquid, then less so, and in such quantities 
that with the help of the afore-mentioned stones a 
mountain was raised one thousand paces in height." 

(The writer's astonishment led him greatly to 
exaggerate the height.) 

These accounts are important as showing how 
in a much longer time a big volcano may be 
built up. From such small operations we learn 
how Nature works on a large scale. The great 
volcano in Mexico known as Jorullo was pro- 
bably built up in a very similar way. There is 
a tradition among the natives that it was made 
in two or three days ; but we can hardly believe 



250 The Story of the Hills. 

that. Volcanoes, as they get older, tend to grow 
taller and bigger ; but every now and then a 
large portion may be blown away by some 
great eruption, and they have, as it were, to 
begin again. 

Let us now consider volcanoes as geological 
agents, and see what they do. A volcanic erup- 
tion may be described in a general way as fol- 
lows : Its advent is heralded by earthquakes 
affecting the mountain and the whole country 
round ; loud underground explosions are heard, 
resembling the fire of distant artillery. The 
vibrations are chiefly transmitted through the 
ground ; the mountain seems convulsed by in- 
ternal throes, clue, no doubt, to the efforts of 
the imprisoned steam and liquid rock to find an 
opening. These signs are accompanied by the 
drying up of wells and disappearance of springs, 
since the water finds its way clown new cracks 
in the rocks, caused by the frequent shocks and 
quiverings. When at last an opening has been 
made, the eruption begins, — generally with one 
tremendous burst that shakes the whole moun- 
tain down to its foundations. After this, fre- 
quent explosions follow with great rapidity and 
increasing violence, generally from the crater. 



Volcanic Mountains. 251 

These are indicated by the globular masses of 
steam which are to be seen rising up in a tall 
column like that which issues from the funnel 
of a locomotive. But sometimes the whole 
mountain seems to be more or less engaged 
in giving out steam, and thus to be partly 
enveloped in it. This is illustrated by our en- 
graving from an instantaneous photograph of 
Vesuvius in eruption in the year 1872. The 
steam and other gases, in their violent ascent, 
hurl up into the air a great deal of solid rock 
from the sides of the central opening, after first 
blowing out the stones which previously stopped 
up the orifice. 

Blocks of stone falling; clown meet with others 
coming up ; and so a tremendous pounding action 
takes place, the result of which is that great 
quantities of volcanic dust and ashes are pro- 
duced, generally of extreme fineness. Winds 
and ocean currents transport these light mate- 
rials for long distances. The observations made 
during the famous and fruitful voyage of 
H. M. S. " Challenger " showed that fine vol- 
canic dust is carried by wind and marine cur- 
rents to almost all parts of the oceans. The 
darkness so frequently mentioned in accounts 



252 The Story of the Hills. 

of eruptions — sometimes at a very great dis- 
tance from the volcano — is entirely caused by 
clouds of volcanic dust hiding the light of the 
sun. Perhaps the best example of this is the 
case of the eruption of Krakatoa (in the Strait 
of Sunda, between Sumatra and Java) in 1883. 
Its explosions were heard in all directions for 
two thousand miles, and a perceptible layer of 
volcanic dust fell at all places within one thou- 
sand miles ; while the finest dust and vapour, 
shot up fifteen or twenty miles high, were spread 
all over the globe, causing, while still suspended 
in the atmosphere, the peculiar red sunset's 
noticed in all parts of the world for some 
months after the eruption. 

Again, those very curious deposits of " red 
clay " found in the very deepest parts of the 
Pacific and Atlantic oceans (at depths of about 
four thousand fathoms, or twenty-four thousand 
feet) have been shown to be chiefly composed 
of volcanic dust, their red colour being due to 
oxidised iron. 

But there is another way in which a good 
deal of fine volcanic dust is made ; and it is 
this : the lava is so full of steam intimately 
mixed up with it that the steam, in its violent 



Volcanic Mountains. 253 

effort to escape, often blows the lava into mere 
dust. 

Another interesting phenomenon may be thus 
described : Portions of liquid, or half liquid, 
lava are caught up by the steam and hurled into 
the air. These assume a more or less round 
form, and are known as " bombs." At a dis- 
tance they give rise to the appearance of flames. 
And here we may remark that the flaring, 
coloured pictures of Etna or Vesuvius in erup- 
tion, which frequently may be seen, are by no 
means correct. The huge flames shooting up 
into the air are quite imaginary, but are proba- 
bly suggested by the glare and bright reflection 
from glowing molten lava down in the crater. 

So great is the force of the pent-up steam 
trying to escape that it frequently blows a large 
part of the volcano bodily away ; and in some 
cases a whole mountain has been blown to 
pieces. 

Finally, torrents of rain follow and accompany 
an eruption, — a result which clearly follows 
from the condensation of large volumes of steam 
expanding and rising up into the higher and 
cooler layers of the atmosphere. Vast quanti- 
ties of volcanic ash are caught up by the rain, 



254 The Story of the Hills. 

and in this way very large quantities of mud 
are washed down the sides of the mountain. 

Sometimes the mud-flows are on a large 
scale, and descending with great force, bury 
a whole town. It was mostly in this way 
that the ancient cities of Herculaneum and 
Pompeii were buried by the great eruption 
of Vesuvius in the year 79 a. d., in which 
the elder Pliny lost his life. The discoveries 
made during excavations at Pompeii are of 
very great interest as illustrating old Roman 
life. The Italians give the name lava d'ac- 
qua, or water-lava, to flows of this kind, and 
they are greatly dreaded on account of their 
great rapidity. An ordinary lava-stream creeps 
slowly along, so that people have time to get 
out of the way ; but in the case of mud-flows 
there is often no time to escape. No lava- 
stream has ever reached Pompeii since it was 
first built, although the foundations of the 
town stand upon an old lava-flood. Hercula- 
neum is nearer to Vesuvius, and has at times 
been visited by lava-streams. Mud-lavas, ashes, 
and lava-streams have accumulated over this 
city to a depth of over seventy feet. 

Lava-streams vary greatly in size ; in some 



Volcanic Mountains. 255 

cases the lava, escaping from craters, comes to 
rest before reaching the base of the slopes of 
the volcano ; in other cases a lava-flow not 
only reaches the plains below, but extends for 
many miles over the surrounding country. 
Hence lava-streams are important geological 
agents. Let us look at some famous instances. 
The most stupendous flow on record was that 
which took place from Skaptar Jokull in 
Iceland, in the year 1783. In this case a 
number of streams issued from the volcano, 
flooding the country far and wide, filling up 
river gorges which were in some cases six 
hundred feet deep and two hundred and fifty 
feet broad, and advancing into the alluvial 
plains in lakes of molten rock twelve to fif- 
teen miles wide and one hundred feet deep. 
Two currents of lava which flowed in nearly op- 
posite directions spread out with varying thick- 
ness according to the nature of the ground for 
forty and fifty miles respectively. Had this 
great eruption taken place in the south of 
England, all the country from the neighbour- 
hood of London to that of Gloucester might 
have been covered by a flood of basalt of con- 
siderable thickness. 



256 The Story of the Hills. 

Sometimes, when the lava can only escape 
at a point low down on the mountain, a foun- 
tain of molten rock will spout high into the 
air. This has happened on Vesuvius and Etna. 
But in an eruption of Mauna Loa, in the Sand- 
wich Islands, an unbroken fountain of lava, 
from two hundred to seven hundred feet high 
and one thousand feet broad, burst out at the 
base of the mountain ; and again in April, 
1888, the same thing happened on a still 
grander scale. In this case four fiery foun- 
tains continued to play for several weeks, 
sometimes throwing the glowing lava to a 
height of one thousand feet in the air. Surely 
there can be no more wonderful or awful 
sight than this in the world. 

The volcanoes of Hawaii, the principal island 
in the Sandwich Islands, often send forth lava- 
streams covering an area of over one hun- 
dred square miles to a depth of one hundred 
feet or more ; but they are discharged quite 
quietly, like water welling out of a spring. 
Repeated flows of this kind, however, have in 
the course of ages built up a great flat cone 
six miles high from the floor of the ocean, to 
form this lofty island, which is larger than 



Volcanic Mountains. 257 

Surrey ; and it is calculated that the great 
volcanic mountain must contain enough mate- 
rial to cover the whole of the United States 
with a layer of rock fifty feet deep. 

But it is not only on the surface of the 
land that volcanic eruptions take place ; for in 
some cases the outbreak of a submarine erup- 
tion has been witnessed, and it is highly prob- 
able that in past geological ages many large 
eruptions of this nature have taken place. In 
the year 1783, an eruption took place about 
thirty miles off the west coast of Iceland. 
An island was built up from which glowing 
vapour and smoke came forth • but in a year 
or less the waves had washed everything 
away, leaving only a submerged reef. The 
island of Santorin, in the Greek Archipelago, 
is a partly submerged volcano. 

But in some cases enormous outpourings of 
lava have taken place, not from volcanoes, but 
from openings of the ground here and there, 
and more usually from long fissures or cracks 
in the rocks lying at the surface. In many 
cases so much lava has quietly welled out in 
this way that the old features of the land- 
scape have been completely buried up, and 

17 



258 The Story of the Hilts. 

wide plains and plateaux formed over them. 
Sir A. Geikie says, — 

" Some of the most remarkable examples of this 
type of volcanic structure occur in western North 
America. Among these that of the Snake River 
plain in Idaho may be briefly described. 

" Surrounded on the north and east by lofty moun- 
tains, it stretches westward as an apparently bound- 
less desert of sand and bare sheets of black basalt. 
A few streams descending into the plain from the 
hills are soon swallowed up and lost. The Snake 
River, however, flows across it, and has cut out 
of its lava bed a series of picturesque gorges and 
rapids. 

" The extent of country which has been flooded with 
basalt in this and adjoining regions of Oregon and 
Washington has not yet been accurately surveyed, 
but has been estimated to cover a larger area than 
France and Great Britain combined. Looked at 
from any point on its surface, one of these lava 
plains appears as a vast level surface, like that of a 
lake bottom. This uniformity has been produced 
either by the lava rolling over a plain or lake bottom, 
or by the complete effacement of an original, undu- 
lating contour of the ground under hundreds of feet 
of lava in successive sheets. The lava, rolling up 
to the base of the mountains, has followed the 
sinuosities of their margin, as the waters of a lake 
follow its promontories and bays." 



Volcanic Mountains. 259 

A few further examples of mud-lavas may 
be mentioned here. Cotopaxi, a great vol- 
cano in Ecuador, South America, with a height 
of 17,900 feet, reaches so high into the at- 
mosphere that the higher parts are capped 
with snow. In June, 1877, a great eruption 
took place, during which the melting of snow 
and ice gave rise to torrents of mud and 
water, which rushed down the steep sides of 
the mountain, so that large blocks of ice were 
hurried along. The villages around to a dis- 
tance of about seventy miles were buried 
under a deposit of mud, mixed with blocks of 
lava, ashes, pieces of wood, etc. 

Sometimes a volcano discharges large quan- 
tities of mud directly from the crater. In this 
case the mud is not manufactured by the 
volcano itself, but finds its way through fis- 
sures and cracks from the bed of the neigh- 
bouring sea or rivers to the crater. Thus, in 
the year 1691, Imbaburu, one of the Andes of 
Quito, sent out floods of mud containing dead 
fish, the decay of which caused fever in the 
neighbourhood. In the same way the vol- 
canoes of Java have often buried large tracts 
of fertile country under a covering of volcanic 
mud, thus causing great devastation. 



260 The Story of the Hitls. 

Vast quantities of dust are produced, as 
already explained, by the pounding action that 
takes place during an eruption, as portions 
of rock in falling down meet others that are 
being hurled into the air. Striking instances 
of this have occurred not far from Great 
Britain. Thus in the year 1783, during an 
eruption of Skaptar Jokull, so great was the 
amount of dust thus created that the atmos- 
phere in Iceland was loaded with it for 
several months. Carried by winds, it even 
reached the northern parts of Scotland, and 
in Caithness so much of it fell that the crops 
were destroyed. This is remarkable, consider- 
ing that the distance was six hundred miles. 
Even in Holland and Norway there are traces 
of this great shower of dust from the Ice- 
landic volcano. 

During the fearful eruption of Tomboro, a 
volcano in the island of Sumbawa, in the 
Eastern Archipelago, in 1815, the abundance 
of ashes and dust ejected caused darkness 
at midday at Java, three hundred miles away, 
and even there the ground was covered to 
a depth of several inches. In Sumbawa it- 
self the part of the island joining the moun- 



Volcanic Mountains. 261 

tain was entirely desolated, and all the houses 
destroyed, together with twelve thousand in- 
habitants. Trees and herbage were over- 
whelmed with pumice and volcanic dust. The 
floating pumice on the sea around formed a 
layer two feet, six inches thick, through which 
vessels forced their way with difficulty. From 
such facts as these it is clear that if in past 
ages volcanoes have been so powerfully active as 
they are now, we should expect to find lava- 
flows, dykes, and great deposits of volcanic ash 
deposited in water among the stratified rocks ; 
and such is the case. Many large masses of 
rock familiar to the geologist, and often forming 
parts of existing mountains, are to be accounted 
for either as great lava-flows, or dykes that 
have forced their way in among the strata, or 
as extensive deposits of volcanic ash. 

But perhaps the reader would like to know 
what the inside of a volcanic crater is like dur- 
ing an eruption. Let us, then, take a peep 
into that fearful crater of Kilauea, in the Sand- 
wich Islands. For this purpose we cannot 
do better than follow Miss Bird's admirable 
description of her adventurous expedition to 
this crater : — 



262 The Story of the Hills. 

" The abyss, which really is at a height of four 
thousand feet, on the flank of Manna Loa, has the 
appearance of a pit on a rolling plain. But such a 
pit ! It is quite nine miles in circumference, and at 
its lowest area — which not long ago fell about three 
hundred feet, just as ice on a pond falls when the 
water below is withdrawn — covers six square miles. 
The depth of the crater varies from eight hundred to 
one thousand feet, according as the molten sea below 
is at flood or ebb. Signs of volcanic activity are 
present more or less throughout its whole depth, and 
for some distance round its margin, in the form of 
steam-cracks, jets of sulphurous vapour, blowing 
cones, accumulating deposits of acicular crystals of 
sulphur, etc., and the pit itself is constantly rent and 
shaken by earthquakes. Grand eruptions occurred 
with circumstances of indescribable terror and dig- 
nity ; but Kilauea does not limit its activity to these 
outbursts, but has exhibited its marvellous phenomena 
through all known time in a lake or lakes on the 
southern part of the crater three miles from this side. 

" This lake — the Hale-mau-mau, or ' House of 
Everlasting Fire,' of the Hawaiian mythology, the 
abode of the dreaded goddess Pele — is approach- 
able with safety, except during an eruption. The 
spectacle, however, varies almost daily ; and at times 
the level of the lava in the pit within a pit is so low, 
and the suffocating gases are evolved in such enor- 
mous quantities, that travellers are unable to see any- 



Volcanic Mount 'azns. 263 

thing. There had been no news from it for a week ; 
and as nothing was to be seen but a very faint bluish 
vapour hanging round its margin, the prospect was not 
encouraging. . . . After more than an hour of very 
difficult climbing, we reached the lowest level of the 
crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting from 
above the appearance of a sea at rest ; but on crossing 
it, we found it to be an expanse of waves and convo- 
lutions of ashy-coloured lava, with huge cracks filled 
up with black iridescent rolls of lava only a few 
weeks old. Parts of it are very rough and ridgy, 
jammed together like field-ice, or compacted by rolls 
of lava, which may have swelled up from beneath ; 
but the largest part of the area presents the appear- 
ance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation of 
the lava rendering the illusion almost perfect. These 
are riven by deep cracks, which emit hot sulphurous 
vapours. . . . 

" As we ascended, the flow became hotter under our 
feet, as well as more porous and glistening. It was 
so hot that a shower of rain hissed as it fell upon it. 
The crust became increasingly insecure, and neces- 
sitated our walking in single file with the guide in 
front, to test the security of the footing. I fell through 
several times, and always into holes full of sulphurous 
steam so malignantly acid that my strong dogskin 
gloves were burned through as I raised myself on 
my hands. 

" We had followed the lava-flow for thirty miles up to 



264 The Story of the Hitls. 

the crater's brink, and now we had toiled over recent 
lava for three hours, and by all calculation were close 
to the pit ; yet there was no smoke or sign of fire, 
and I felt sure that the volcano had died out for once 
for our special disappointment. . . . 

" Suddenly, just above, and in front of us, gory drops 
were tossed in the air, and springing forwards we 
stood on the brink of Hale-mau-mau, which was about 
thirty-five feet below us. I think we all screamed. I 
know we all wept ; but we were speechless, for a new 
glory and terror had been added to the earth. It is 
the most unutterable of wonderful things. The words 
of common speech are quite useless. It is unimagi- 
nable, indescribable ; a sight to remember for ever ; a 
sight which at once took possession of every faculty 
of sense and soul, removing one altogether out of 
the range of ordinary life. Here was the real ' bot- 
tomless pit,' ' the fire which is not quenched,' 
' the place of Hell,' ' the lake which burnetii with 
fire and brimstone/ 'the everlasting burnings,' * the 
fiery sea whose waves are never weary.' ] There were 
groanings, rumblings, and detonations, rushings, 
hissings, splashings, and the crashing sound of 
breakers on the coast ; but it was the surging of fiery 
waves upon a fiery shore. But what can I write ? 
Such words as jets, fountains, waves, spray, convey 
some idea of order and regularity, but here there was 

1 Perhaps these Scripture phrases were suggested long before 
the Bible was written, by the sight of some crater in active 
eruption. 



Volcanic Mountains.- 265 

none. The inner lake, while we stood there, formed 
a sort of crater within itself ; the whole lava sea rose 
about three feet ; a blowing cone about eight feet high 
was formed ; it was never the same two minutes 
together. And what .we saw had no existence a 
month ago, and probably will be changed in every 
essential feature a month hence. . . . The prominent 
object was fire in motion ; but the surface of the double 
lake was continually skimming over for a second or 
two with a cooled crust of a lustrous grey-white, like 
frosted silver, broken by jagged cracks of a bright 
rose-colour. The movement was nearly always from 
the sides to the centre ; but the movement of the cen- 
tre itself appeared independent, and always took a 
southerly direction. Before each outburst of agitation 
there was much hissing and throbbing, internal roar- 
ing, as of imprisoned gases. Now it seemed furious, 
demoniacal, as if no power on earth could bind it, 
then playful and sportive, then for a second languid, 
but only because it was accumulating fresh force. . . . 
Sometimes the whole lake . . . took the form of 
mighty waves, and surging heavily against the partial 
barrier with a sound like the Pacific surf, lashed, tore, 
covered it, and threw itself over it in clots of living 
fire. It was all confusion, commotion, forces, terror, 
glory, majesty, mystery, and even beauty. And the 
colour, ' eye hath not seen ' it ! Molten metal hath 
not that crimson gleam, nor blood that living light." * 

1 The Hawaiian Archipelago. 



266 The Story of the Hills. 

Continued observation of volcanoes, together 
with evidence derived from history, teaches that 
there are different stages of volcanic action. 
There are three pretty well-marked phases. 
First, the state of permanent eruption ; this 
is not a dangerous state, because the steam keeps 
escaping all the time : the safety-valve is at 
work, and all goes smoothly. The second state 
is one of moderate activity, with more or less 
violent eruptions at brief intervals ; this is 
rather dangerous, because at times the safety- 
valve does not work. 

And thirdly, we have paroxysms of intense 
energy, alternating with long periods of repose 
sometimes lasting for centuries. These erup- 
tions are extremely violent, and cause wide- 
spread destruction ; the safety-valve has got 
jammed, and so the boiler bursts 

No volcano has been so carefully watched 
for a long time as Vesuvius. Its history illus- 
trates the phases we have just mentioned. The 
first recorded eruption is that of a. d. 79, a very 
severe one of the violent type, by which Her- 
culaneum, Pompeii, and Stabise were buried. 
AVe have an interesting account by the younger 
Pliny. Before this great eruption took place, 



Volcanic Mountains. 267 

Vesuvius had been in a state of repose for eight 
hundred years, and if we may judge from the 
Greek and Roman writings, was not even sus- 
pected of being a volcano. Then followed an 
interval of rest until the reign of Severus, the 
second eruption taking place in the year 203. 
In the year 472, says Procopius, all Europe 
was covered more or less with volcanic ashes. 
Other eruptions followed at intervals, but there 
was complete repose for two centuries ; that is, 
until the year 1306. In 1500 it was again 
active, then quiet again for one hundred and 
thirty years. In 1631 there took place another 
terrific outburst. After this many eruptions 
followed, and they have been frequent ever 
since. Vesuvius is therefore now in the second 
stage of moderate activity. 

But geologists can take a wider view than 
this. They can sum up the history of a vol- 
canic region of the earth ; and the result is 
somewhat as follows : Volcanoes, like living 
creatures, go through different periods or 
phases, corresponding roughly to youth, middle 
age, old age, and finally decay. The invasion 
of any particular area of the earth's surface by 
the volcanic forces is heralded by underground 



268 The Story of the Hills. 

shocks, or earthquakes. A little later on cracks 
are formed, as indicated by the rise of saline 
and hot springs, and the issuing of carbonic 
acid and other gases at the surface of the earth. 
As the underground activity becomes greater, 
the temperature of the springs and emitted 
gases increases; and at last a visible rent is 
formed, exposing highly heated and glowing 
rock below. From the fissure thus formed, the 
gas and vapours imprisoned in the molten rocks 
escape with such violence as to disperse the 
latter in the form of pumice and volcanic ash, 
or to cause them to pour out as lava-streams. 

The action generally becomes confined to one 
or more points along the line of action (which 
is a line of fissures and cracks). In this way a 
chain of volcanoes is formed, which may become 
the seat of volcanic action for a long time. 

When the volcanic energies have become 
somewhat exhausted, so that they cannot raise 
up the lava and expel it from the volcanic cra- 
ter, nor rend the sides of the volcano and cause 
minor cones to grow up on their flanks, small 
cones may be formed at a lower level in the 
plains around the great central chain. These 
likewise are fed from fissures. 



Volcanic Mountains. 269 

Later on, as the heated rock below cools 
down, the fissures are sealed up by lava that has 
become solid ; and then the volcanoes fall, as it 
were, into the " sere and yellow leaf," and re- 
main in a peaceful, quiet state befitting their 
old age. 

After this they begin to suffer from long ex- 
posure to the atmospheric influences of decay, 
and rain and rivers wash them away more or 
less completely. 

But still the presence of heated rocky matter 
at no great depth below is proved by the out- 
bursts of gases and vapours, the forming of 
geysers and ordinary hot springs. Gradually, 
however, even these signs of heat below disap- 
pear ; and the cycle of volcanic phases is at an 
end. Such a series of changes may require mil- 
lions of years ; but by the study of volcanoes in 
every stage of their growth and decline it is 
possible thus to sketch out an outline of their 
history. 

It must be confessed that in the present state 
of scientific knowledge no full and complete 
explanation of volcanic action is possible. Geol- 
ogists and others are as yet but feeling their 
way cautiously towards the light which, per- 



270 The Story of the Hills. 

haps before long, will illumine the dark recesses 
of this mysterious subject. Many theories and 
ideas have been put forward, but in the opinion 
of the writer the most promising explanation is 
one that may be briefly expressed as follows : 

There are below the crust of the earth large 
masses of highly heated rock that are kept solid 
by the enormous pressure of the overlying rocks, 
or otherwise they would melt, — for it is a 
known fact that pressure tends to prevent the 
melting of a solid body. But when earth-move- 
ments taking place within the earth's crust — 
such as the upheaving of mountain-chains — 
take off some of the weight, the balance between 
internal heat and the pressure from above is no 
longer maintained ; and so these highly heated 
rocks run off into the liquid state, and finding 
their way to the surface through the fissures 
mentioned above, give rise to volcanic action. 
There is much to be said in favour of this view. 
It rightly connects volcanic action with move- 
ments of upheaval, with mountain-chains and 
lines of weakness in the earth's crust. 

There is very good reason to believe that the 
earth was once in a highly heated state, and has 
been slowly cooling down for ages. The increase 



Volcanic Mountains. 271 

of temperature observed in penetrating mines 
tells us that it still retains below the surface some 
of its old heat. We need not therefore be sur- 
prised at the existence of heated masses of rock 
down below, or seek, as some have done, an en- 
tirely different source for the origin of volcanic 
heat than that which remains from the earth's 
once molten condition. It would take too long 
to state the reasons on which this idea of the 
former state of our planet is based, and more- 
over, it would bring us into the region of astron- 
omy, with which we are not concerned at 
present. 

In various parts of Great Britain and Ireland 
we meet with old volcanic rocks, — lavas, intru- 
sive dykes, and sheets of basalt, etc., together 
with vast deposits of volcanic ash, which, sinking 
into the old neighbouring seas, became stratified, 
or arranged in layers like the ordinary sedi- 
mentary rocks. In some cases we see embedded 
in these layers the very " bombs " that were 
thrown out by the old volcanoes (see page 253). 
And besides these purely volcanic rocks, we often 
meet in these areas with great bosses of granite, 
which must have been in some way connected 
with the old volcanoes, and probably were in 



272 The Story of the Hills. 

many cases the source from which much of the 
volcanic rock was derived. But more than this, 
in a few instances we have the site of the old 
volcano itself marked out by a kind of pipe, or 
" neck," now filled with some of its volcanic 
debris in the shape of coarse, rounded fragments 
(see page 277). 

During a very ancient period, known to geol- 
ogists as the Silurian Period, great lava-flows 
took place from volcanoes situated where North 
and South Wales and the Lake District now 
are ; and by their eruptions a vast amount of 
volcanic ash was made, which fell into the sea 
and slowly sank to the bottom, so that the shell- 
fish living there were buried in the strata thus 
formed, and may now be seen in a fossilised 
condition. 

Thus Snowdon, Cader Idris, the Arans, Ar- 
enig Mountain, and others, are very largely 
made up of these ancient volcanic materials. 
The writer has picked up specimens of fossil 
shell-fish near the summit of Snowdon from a 
bed of fine volcanic ash that forms the summit. 
Fig. 2 represents a section through Snowdon, 
from which it will be seen that we have first a 
few sedimentary strata, S, then a great lava- 



Volcanic Mountains. 



273 



fa j 



H fa 
<& o 

o 



& 5 






< 

H 

H 
fa 

o 



Mil 



V/> 



■* 2 



I 



be 



Volcanic Mountains. 275 

flow, L; and that volcanic ashes accumulated 
on the top of this, of which A A are patches 
still left. B is an intrusive dyke of a basaltic 
rock that forced its way through afterwards. 
Again, in the Lake District there is a well- 
known volcanic series of stratified rocks of the 
same age, consisting mostly of lavas and ashes, 
the total thickness of which is about twelve 
thousand feet (known as the '"'Green Slates and 
Porphyries "), so that a large part of some of 
the mountains there have also been built up 
by volcanic action ; but no traces of the old 
volcanoes remain. 

Going farther north we find abundant proof 
that volcanic action on a prodigious scale took 
place in Scotland during the very ancient period 
of the Old Red Sandstone, with which the name 
of Hugh Miller will always be associated. In 
Central Scotland we see lava-flows and strata 
formed of volcanic ash, with a thickness of 
more than six thousand feet, fragments of 
which, having escaped the destructive agents 
of denudation, now form important chains of 
hills, such as the Pentland, Ochil, and Sidlaw 
ranges. Nor was the volcanic action confined 
to this region. In the district of the Cheviot 



276 The Story of the Hills. 

Hills similar volcanic rocks are to be seen. 
But here again the old volcanoes have long 
since been swept away, leaving us only por- 
tions of their outpourings buried in the hills. 

There can be no doubt that the present area 
of the Grampian Hills was once the site of a 
considerable number of volcanoes, only at a 
much higher level than their present surface, 
elevated though that is to the region of the 
clouds ; but in this case subsequent denuda- 
tion has been so enormous that the old moun- 
tain surface has been planed away until all 
we can now see is a series of separate patches 
of granite, that were once in a fused and 
highly heated state far below the surface, and 
formed part of the subterranean reservoirs 
from which the volcanoes derived their great 
supplies of lava and steam. It is indeed diffi- 
cult to imagine the enormous amount of denu- 
dation which has taken place in the Highlands 
of Scotland, and to realise that the magnificent 
range of the Cairngorms, for instance, has 
been for ages worn down until now they are but 
a remnant of what they once were. 

In this region we see the once boiling and 
seething masses of rock which fed the old vol- 



Volcanic Mountains. 277 

canoes, now no longer endowed with life-like 
power by the force of steam, but lying 
in death-like cold and stiffness, with their 
beautiful crystals of mica and felspar spar- 
kling in the sun. The volcanic fires have died 
out ; but the traces of their work are unmis- 
takable, among which we must not forget to 
reckon the beautiful minerals made by the 
action of heated water upon the surrounding 
rocks. 

The beautiful cairngorm stones are still 
sometimes found on the mountain from which 
they take their name, and in all volcanic re- 
gions minerals are plentiful. 

The well-known hill called Arthur's Seat, 
close to Edinburgh, marks the site of an old 
volcano. The " neck," or central opening, may 
be seen at the top of the hill, but choked up 
with volcanic rocks and debris. The crater has 
long since disappeared, but Salisbury Craigs 
and St. Leonard's Craigs are formed of a great 
sheet of basalt that intruded itself among the 
stratified rocks that had been formed there, 
and so belong really to a great intrusive dyke. 
In the Castle Rock we see the same basalt 
again. 



278 The Story of the Hills. 

During a much later age, known as the Mio- 
cene Period (see chap, x., p. 324), enormous out- 
pourings of lava took place in Western Europe, 
covering hundreds of square miles. Of these 
the most important is that which occupies a 
large part of the northeast of Ireland, and ex- 
tends in patches through the Inner Hebrides and 
the Faroe Islands into Iceland. These eruptive 
rocks, unlike those above referred to, must have 
poured out at the surface, and have taken the 
form of successive sheets, such as we now see in 
the terraced plateaux of Skye, Eigg, Canna, 
Muck, Mull, and Morven. These, then, are 
patches of what once formed a great plain of 
basalt. During later times this volcanic platform 
has been so greatly cut up by the agents of 
denudation that it has been reduced to mere 
scattered fragments ; thousands of feet of basalt 
have been worn away from it ; deep and wide 
valleys have been carved out of it ; and in many 
cases it has been almost entirely stripped off 
from the wide areas it once covered. Where, 
as in the Isle of Eigg, the lava has been 
piled up in successive sheets, with some layers 
of volcanic ash between, the latter has been 
worn away rather faster than the hard layers 



Volcanic Mountains. 279 

of basalt, and each lava-flow is clearly marked 
by a terrace. These volcanic eruptions have 
thus had a great influence in moulding the 
scenery of this region. In Ireland the old 
basalts are well seen at the Giant's Causeway, 
and on the Scottish coast we see them again at 
the well-known Fingal's cave at Staffa. This 
island, like the others, is just a patch of the old 
lava-streams. 

Its curious six-sided columns illustrate a fact 
with regard to the subsequent cooling of lava- 
flows. Some internal forces, analogous to that 
which regulates the shapes of crystals, have 
caused it to crack along three sets of lines, so 
placed with regard to each other as to produce 
six-sided columns. 

In Ireland the basalts attain a thickness of 
nine hundred feet ; in Mull they are about 
three thousand feet thick. It has been clearly 
proved that Mull is the site of one of the old 
volcanoes of this period, but very few others 
have as yet been detected. Perhaps the erup- 
tions took place mainly from large fissures, 
instead of from volcanic cones, for it is known 
that the ground below the lava-sheets has 
been rent by earthquakes into innumerable fis- 



280 The Story of the Hills. 

sures, into which the basalt was injected from 
below. 

In this way a vast number of "dykes" were 
formed. These have been traced by hundreds 
eastwards from this region across Scotland, and 
even the north of England. In this case the 
molten rock was struggling to get through the 
overlying rocks and escape at the surface ; 
but apparently it did not succeed in so doing, 
for we do not find lava-flows to the east and 
south. These basalt dykes are found as far 
south as Yorkshire, and can be traced over 
an area of one hundred thousand square 
miles. 

It is thus evident that in the Miocene Pe- 
riod a great and extensive mass of molten basalt 
was underlying a large part of the British 
Isles, and probably the weight of the thick 
rocks overlying it was sufficient to prevent its 
escape to the surface. If it had succeeded in 
so escaping and overflowing, how different the 
scenery of much of Scotland and Northern 
England might have been! 



CHAPTER TX. 

MOUNTAIN" ARCHITECTURE. 

The splendour falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story; 
The long light shakes across the lakes. 

And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

Tennyson. 

The dying splendours of the sun slowly 
sinking and entering the "gates of the West" 
may well serve as a fitting emblem of the 
mountains in their beautiful old age, awaiting 
in silent and calm dignity the time when 
they also must be brought low, and sink in 
the waters of the ocean, as the sun appears 
daily to do. Yes, they too have their day. 
They too had their rising, when mighty forces 
brought them up out of their watery bed. 
Many of them have passed their hey-day of 
youth, and their midday ; while others, far ad- 
vanced in old age, are n earing the end of their 
course. 



282 The Story of the Hills. 

But as the sun rises once more over eastern 
seas to begin another clay, so will the sub- 
stance of the mountains be again heaved up 
after a long, long rest under the sea, and 
here and there will rise up from the plains 
to form the lofty mountain-ranges of a distant 
future. 

Everywhere we read the same story, the 
same circle of changes. The Alpine peak that 
proudly rears its head to the clouds must surely 
be brought low, and finally come back to the 
same ocean from which those clouds arose. It 
is in this way that the balance between land 
and water is preserved. In passing through 
such a great circle of changes, the mountains 
assume various forms and shapes which are 
determined by : — 

1. Their different ages and states of decay. 

2. The different kinds of rocks of which they are 
composed, and especially by their " joints," or natural 
divisions. 

3. The different positions into which these rocky 
layers have been squeezed, pushed, and crumpled by 
those stupendous forces of upheaval of which we 
spoke in chapter vi. 

Let us therefore glance at some of these 



Mountain Architecture. 283 

external forms, and then look at the internal 
structure of mountains. 

In so doing we shall find that we have yet 
a good deal more to learn about mountains 
and how they were made ; and also we 
shall then be in a better position to realise 
not only how very much denudation they 
have suffered, but also how greatly they have 
been disturbed since their rocks were first 
made. 

Every one who knows mountains must have 
observed how some are smooth and rounded, 
others sharp and jagged, with peaks and pin- 
nacles standing out clearly against the sky; 
some square and massive, with steep walls 
forming precipices ; others again spread out 
widely at their base, but the sloping sides 
end in a sharp point at the top, giving to the 
mountain the appearance of a cone. Their 
diversities of shape are so endless that we can- 
not attempt to describe them all. 

First, with regard to the general features of 
mountains. Looked at broadly, a mountain- 
range is not a mere line of hills or mountains 
rising straight up from a plain on each side, 
such as school-boys often draw in their maps ; 



284 The Story of the Hills. 

very far from it. Take the Rocky Mountains, 
for instance. " It has been truly said of the 
Rocky Mountains that the word ' range ' does 
not express it at all. It is a whole country 
populous with mountains. It is as if an ocean 
of molten granite had been caught by instant 
petrifaction when its billows were rolling 
heaven high." * 

It has often been observed by mountain 
climbers that when they get to the top of a 
high mountain, and take a bird's-eye view of 
the country, all the mountain-tops seem to 
reach to about the same height, so that a line 
joining them would be almost level. For this 
reason, perhaps, writers so often compare them 
to the waves of an ocean. This feature is 
very conspicuous in the case of the Scotch 
Highlands. 

Sir A. Geikie has well described what he 
saw from the top of Ben Nevis : — 

"Much has been said and written about the wild, 
tumbled sea of the Highland Hills. But as he sits on 
his high perch, does it not strike the observer that 
there is after all a wonderful orderliness, and even 

1 " The Crest of the Continent," by Ernest Ingersoll, Chicago, 

1885- 



Mountain Architecture. 285 

monotony, in the waves of that wide sea ? And when 
he has followed their undulations from north to south, 
all round the horizon, does it not seem to him that 
these mountain-tops and ridges tend somehow to rise 
to a general level ; that, in short, there is not only on 
the great scale a marked similarity of contour about 
them, but a still more definite uniformity of average 
height ? To many who have contented themselves 
with the bottom of the glen, and have looked with awe 
at the array of peaks and crags overhead, this state- 
ment will doubtless appear incredible. But let any 
one get fairly up to the summits and look along them, 
and he will not fail to see that the statement is never- 
theless true. From the top of Ben Nevis this feature 
is impressively seen. Along the sky-line the wide sweep 
of summits undulates up to a common level, varied 
here by a cone and there by the line of some strath or 
glen, but yet wonderfully persistent round the whole 
panorama. If, as sometimes happens in these airy 
regions, a bank of cloud with a level under-surface 
should descend upon the mountains, it will be seen to 
touch summit after summit, the long line of the cloud 
defining, like a great parallel ruler, the long level line 
of the ridges below. I have seen this feature brought 
out with picturesque vividness over the mountains of 
Knoydart and Glen Garry. Wreaths of filmy mist 
had been hovering in the upper air during the forenoon. 
Towards evening, under the influence of a cool breeze 
from the north, they gathered together into one long 



286 The Story of the Hills. 

band that stretched for several miles straight as the 
sky-line of the distant sea, touching merely the higher 
summits and giving a horizon by which the general 
uniformity of level among the hills could be signally 
tested. Once or twice in a season one may be fortu- 
nate enough to get on the mountains above such a 
stratum of mist, which then seems to fill up the ir- 
regularities of the general platform of hill-tops, and to 
stretch out as a white phantom sea, from which the 
highest eminences rise up as little islets into the clear 
air of the morning. . . . Still more striking is the ex- 
ample furnished by the great central mass of the 
Grampians, comprising the Cairngorm Mountains and 
the great comes and precipices round the head of 
the Dee. This tract of rugged ground, when looked 
at from a distance, is found to present the character 
of a high, undulating plateau." l 

This long level line of the Highland mountain- 
tops may be seen very well from the lower 
country outside ; for example, from the isles of 
Skye and Eigg, where one may see the pano- 
rama between the heights of Applecross and 
the Point of Ardnamurchan showing very 
clearly the traces of the old table-land. 

How are we to explain this curious fact, so 
opposed to our first impressions of a mountain 

1 Scenery of Scotland page 130, new edition. 



Mountain Arc hitec hire. 287 

region ? It is quite clear that the old plateau 
thus marked out cannot be caused by the ar- 
rangement or position of the rocks of which 
the Highlands are composed. If these rocks 
were found to be lying pretty evenly in flat 
layers, or strata, undisturbed by great earth- 
movements, we could readily understand that 
they would form a plateau. But the reverse is 
the case : the rocks are everywhere thrown 
into folds, and frequently greatly displaced by 
" faults ; " yet these important geological fea- 
tures have little or no connection with the 
external aspect of the country. It is there- 
fore useless to look to internal structure for an 
explanation. We must look outside, and con- 
sider what has been for ages and ages taking 
place here. 

As already pointed out, an enormous amount 
of solid rock has been removed from this region 
— thousands and thousands of feet. It was long 
ago planed down by the action of water, so that a 
table-land once existed of which the tops of the 
present mountains are isolated fragments. No 
other conclusion is possible. To the geologist 
every hill and valley throughout the whole 
length and breadth of the Highlands bears 



288 The Story of the Hitls. 

striking testimony to this enormous erosion. 
The explanation we are seeking may therefore 
be summed up in one word, " denudation." The 
valleys that now intersect the table-land have 
been carved out of it. If we could in imagina- 
tion put back again onto the present surface 
what has been removed, we should have a 
mental picture of the Highlands as a wide, 
undulating table-land ; and this rolling plain 
would suggest the bottom of the sea. The long 
flat surfaces of the Highland ridges, cut across 
the edges of inclined or even upright strata, 
are the fragments of a former base-line of 
erosion ; that is, they represent the general 
submarine level to which the Highlands were 
reduced after exposure to the action of " rain 
and rivers," and finally of the sea. As the sea 
gradually spread over it, it planed down every- 
thing that had not been previously worn away, 
and so reduced the whole surface to one general 
level like the sea-bed of the present day. But 
it is not necessary to suppose that the whole 
region was under water at the same time, and 
it is probable that there were separate inland 
seas or lakes. In these the rocks of the Old 
Red Sandstone were formed ; and they in their 



Mountain Architecture. 289 

turn have suffered so much denudation that only 
patches and long strips of them are left on the 
borders of the Highlands. 

Before we speak of individual mountains and 
their shapes, it is important to bear in mind 
another fact about mountain-chains ; namely, 
that they are very low in proportion to their 
breadth and length. The great heights reached 
by some mountains produce such a powerful im- 
pression on our senses that we hardly realise 
how very insignificant they really are. It is 
only by drawing them on a true scale that we 
can realise this. The surface of the earth is so 
vast that even the highest mountains are in pro- 
portion but as the little roughnesses on the skin 
of an orange. Fig. 2 (see chap, vii., p. 236) re- 
presents a section through the Highlands, drawn 
on the same scale for height as for length. 

What has been said about the Highland pla- 
teau applies equally well to many other moun- 
tain-ranges. Mr. Ruskin observed something 
rather similar in the Alps. He says, — 

" The longer I stayed in the Alps, and the more 
closely I examined them, the more I was struck by 
the one broad fact of there being a vast Alpine plateau, 

19 



290 The Story of the Hills. 

or mass of elevated land, upon which nearly all the 
highest peaks stood like children set upon a table, 
removed, in most cases, far back from the edge of the 
plateau, as if for fear of their falling ; . . . and for the 
most part the great peaks are not allowed to come to 
the edge of it, but remain like the keeps of castles, 
withdrawn, surrounded league beyond league by com- 
paratively level fields of mountains, over which the 
lapping sheets of glaciers writhe and flow, foaming 
about the feet of the dark central crests like the surf 
of an enormous sea-breaker hurled over a rounded 
rock and islanding some fragment of it in the midst. 
And the result of this arrangement is a kind of 
division of the whole of Switzerland into an upper 
and a lower mountain world, — the lower world con- 
sisting of rich valleys, bordered by steep but easily 
accessible, wooded banks of mountain, more or less 
divided by ravines, through which glimpses are 
caught of the higher Alps ; the upper world, reached 
after the first steep banks of three thousand or four 
thousand feet in height have been surmounted, con- 
sisting of comparatively level but most desolate tracts 
of moor and rock, half covered by glacier, and stretch- 
ing to the feet of the true pinnacles of the chain." 

He then points out the wisdom of this ar- 
rangement, and shows how it protects the 
inhabitants from falling blocks and avalanches ; 
and moreover, the masses of snow, if cast down 



Mountain Architecture. 291 

at once into the warmer air, would melt too 
fast and cause furious inundations. 

All the various kinds of rocks are differently 
affected by the atmospheric influences of decay, 
and so present different external appearances and 
shapes, so that after a little experience the geol- 
ogist can recognize the presence of certain rocks 
by the kind of scenery they produce ; and this 
knowledge is often of great use in helping him 
to unravel the geological structure of a difficult 
region. Thus granite, crystalline schists, slates, 
sandstones, and limestones, all " weather " in 
their own ways, and moreover split up differ- 
ently, because their joints and other natural 
lines of division run in different ways. 

Thus granite is jointed very regularly, some 
of the joints running straight clown and others 
running horizontally, so that the rain and at- 
mosphere seize on these lines and widen them 
very considerably ; and thus the granite is weath- 
ered out either in tall upright columns, like 
those seen at Land's End, or else into great 
square-shaped blocks with their corners rounded 
off, presenting the appearance of a number of 
knapsacks lying one over the other. In this 
way we can account for the well-known " Tors " 



292 The Story of the Hills. 

of Devonshire, and the " Rocking Stones." 
Granite weathers rapidly along its joints, and 
its surfaces crumble away more rapidly than 
might be expected, considering how hard a rock 
it is ; but the felspar which is its chief min- 
eral constituent is readily decomposed by rain 
water, which acts chemically upon it. The 
deposits of China clay in Devonshire are the 
result of the decomposition and washing away 
of the granite of Dartmoor. 

Granite mountains are generally rounded and 
u bossy," breaking now and then into cliffs, the 
faces of which are riven by huge joints, and 
present a very different appearance from those 
composed of crystalline schists with their sharp 
crests and peaks. Ben Nevis and the Cairn- 
gorms are partly composed of granite. 

Gneiss is a rock composed of the same miner- 
als as granite ; namely, mica, quartz, and 
felspar. And yet mountains composed of this 
rock have quite a different aspect, and some- 
times, as in the Alps, produce very sharp and 
jagged pinnacles. The reason of this is that 
gneiss splits in a different way from granite, be- 
cause its minerals are arranged in layers, and so 
it is more like a crystalline schist. 



Mountain Architecture. 293 

Mica-schist is another rock very abundant in 
mountain regions. This rock is composed of 
quartz and mica arranged in wavy layers. The 
mica, which is very conspicuous, lies in thin 
plates, sometimes so dovetailed into each other 
as to form long continuous layers separating it 
from those of the quartz ; and it readily splits 
along the layers of mica. This mineral is easily 
recognised by its bright, shiny surface. There 
are, however, two varieties, — one of a light 
colour and the other black. 

Mica-schist and gneiss are often found in 
the same region, and are the materials of 
which most of the highest peaks in Europe 
are composed. We find them abounding in 
the district of Mont Blanc ; and all the 
monarch's attendant aiguilles, with the splin- 
tered ridges enclosing the great snowfields 
in the heart of the chain, consist mostly of 
these two rocks. The Matterhorn, Weisshorn, 
Monte Viso, the Grand Paradis, the Aiguille 
Verte and Aiguille du Dru are examples of 
the wonderful forms produced by the break- 
ing up and decay of these two rocks. 

The different varieties of slate split in a 
very marked way. Slates are often asso- 



294 The Story of the Hills. 

ciated with the schists, and exert their influ- 
ence in modifying the scenery. 

Limestone ranges, though less striking in 
the outlines of their crests than those com- 
posed of slates and crystalline schists, and 
not reaching to such heights, are nevertheless 
not at all inferior in the grandeur of their 
cliffs, which frequently extend for miles along 
the side of a valley in vast terraces, whose 
precipitous walls are often absolutely inac- 
cessible. The beauty of limestone mountains 
is often enhanced by the rich pastures and 
forests which clothe their lower slopes. The 
clolomitic limestone of the Italian Tyrol, being 
gashed by enormous vertical joints and at 
the same time having been formed in rather 
thin layers which break up into small blocks, 
produces some very striking scenery. But wild 
as these mountainous ridges may be, their 
forms can never be confounded with those 
of the crystalline schists ; for however sharp 
their pinnacles may appear at first sight, 
careful examination will always show that 
their outline is that of ruined masonry, 
suggesting crumbling battlements and totter- 
ing turrets, and not the curving, flame-like 



Mountain Architecture. 295 

crests and splintered peaks of the crystalline 
schists. 1 

It has already been explained that all sedi- 
mentary rocks have been formed under water 
in layers or strata, and it must be obvious 
that the stratification of such rocks has an 
important influence on scenery ; and very much 
depends on whether the strata have been left 
undisturbed, with perhaps just a slight slope, 
or whether they have been folded and crum- 
pled ; for the position of the strata, or " bed- 
ding," as it is called. — whether flat, inclined, 
vertical, or contorted, — largely determines the 
nature of the surface. Undoubtedly the most 
characteristic scenery formed by stratified rocks 
is to be seen in those places where the " bed- 
ding" is horizontal, or nearly so, and the 
strata are massive. A mountain constructed of 
such materials appears as a colossal pyramid, 
the level lines of stratification looking like 
great courses of masonry. The joints that cut 
across the strata allow it to be cleft into great 
blocks and deep chasms ; so that, as in the case 
of the dolomitic limestone above mentioned, we 
find a resemblance to ruined buildings. 

1 Bonney. 



296 The Story of the Hills. 

We cannot find a better example of this in 
our own country than the mountains of sand- 
stone and conglomerate (of the Cambrian age) 
that here and there lie on the great platform 
of old gneiss in the west of Sutherland and 
Koss. Sir A. Geikie says, — 

" The bleak, bare gneiss, with its monotonous un- 
dulations, tarns, and bogs, is surmounted by groups of 
cones, which for individuality of form and indepen- 
dence of position better deserve to be called moun- 
tains than most of the eminences to which that name 
is given in Scotland. These huge pyramids, rising to 
heights of between two thousand and four thousand 
feet, consist of dark red strata, so little inclined that 
their edges can be traced by the eye in long, level 
bars on the steeper hillsides and precipices, like lines 
of masonry. Here and there the hand of time has 
rent them into deep rifts, from which long ' screes ' 
(slopes of loose stones) descend into the plains below, 
as stones are detached from the shivered walls of an 
ancient battlement. Down their sides, which have in 
places the steepness of a bastion, vegetation finds but 
scanty room along the projecting ledges of the sand- 
stone beds, where the heath and grass and wild- 
flowers cluster over the rock in straggling lines and 
tufts of green ; and yet, though nearly as bare as the 
gneiss below them, these lofty mountains are far from 
presenting the same aspect of barrenness. The pre- 



Mountain Architecture. 297 

vailing colour of their component strata gives them a 
warm red hue, which even at noon contrasts strongly 
with the grey of the platform of older rock. . . . 
These huge isolated cones are among the most strik- 
ing memorials of denudation anywhere to be seen in 
the British Isles. Quinag, Canisp, Suilven, Coulmore, 
and the hills of Coygoch, Dundonald, Loch Maree, 
and Torridon are merely detached patches of a forma- 
tion not less than seven thousand or eight thousand 
feet thick, which once spread over the northwest of 
Scotland. The spaces between them were once occu- 
pied by the same dull red sandstone ; the horizontal 
stratification of one hill, indeed, is plainly continuous 
with that of the others, though deep and wide valleys, 
or miles of low moorland, may now lie between. 
While the valleys have been worn down through the 
sandstone, these strange pyramidal mountains that 
form so singular a feature in the landscapes of the 
northwest highlands have been left standing, like 
lonely sea-stacks, as monuments of long ages of 
waste." 1 

Again, the vast table-lands of the Colorado 
region illustrate on a truly magnificent scale, 
to which there is no parallel in the Old 
World, the effects of atmospheric erosion on 
undisturbed and nearly level strata. Here we 

1 Scenery of Scotland, page 201, new edition. 



298 The Story of the Hills. 

find valleys and river gorges deeper and longer 
than any others in the world ; great winding 
lines of escarpment, like ranges of sea cliffs ; 
terraced slopes rising at various levels ; huge 
buttresses and solitary monuments, standing 
like islands out of the plains ; and lastly, 
great mountain masses carved out into the 
most striking and picturesque shapes, yet with 
their lines of " bedding " clearly marked out. 

On the other hand, where, as is almost al- 
ways the case in mountain-ranges, the stratified 
rocks have been folded, crumpled, twisted, and 
fractured by great "faults," we find a very 
different result. In these cases the rocks have 
generally been very much altered by the action 
of heat. For here we find crystalline schists, 
gneiss, granite, and other rocks in the forma- 
tion of which heat has played an important 
part ; and very often the igneous rocks have 
forced their way through those of sedimentary 
origin and altered them into what are called 
metamorphic rocks (see chapter v., page 156). 
Thus they have lost much of their original 
character and structure. 

The repeated uplifts and subsidences of the 
earth's crust, by which the continents of the 



Mountain Architecture. 299 

world have been raised up out of the sea to 
form dry land, have, broadly speaking, thrown 
the rocky strata into a series of wave-like 
undulations. In some extensive regions these 
undulations are so broad and low that the 
curvature is quite imperceptible, and the 
strata appear to lie in horizontal layers, or 
to slope very slightly in a certain direction. 
This is, in a general way, the position of 
the strata of which plains and plateaux are 
composed. 

But in the longer and comparatively nar- 
row mountain regions that traverse each of the 
great continents, forming, as it were, backbones 
to them, the undulations are very much more 
frequent, narrower, and higher. Sometimes the 
rocks have been thrown into huge open waves, 
or the folds are closely crowded together, so 
that the strata stand on their ends, or are even 
completely overturned, and thus their proper 
order of succession is reversed, and the older 
ones actually lie on the top of the newer 
ones. 

As we approach a great mountain-chain we 
observe many minor ridges and smaller chains 
running roughly parallel with it, and, as it 



300 The Story of the Hills. 

were, foreshadowing the great folds met with 
in the centre of the chain and among its 
highest peaks. These small folds become 
sharper and closer the nearer we get to the 
main chain, and evidently were formed by 
the same movements that uplifted the higher 
ranges beyond ; but the force was not so 
great. Thus we find the great Alpine chain 
flanked to the north by the smaller ranges of 
the Jura Mountains ; and on the south side of 
the Himalayas we find similar smaller ranges 
of hills. 

Ruskin thus describes his impression of the 
Jura ranges, which he very aptly compares 
with a swell on the sea far away from a storm, 
the storm being represented by the wild sea of 
Alpine mountains : — 

" Among the hours of his life to which the writer 
looks back with peculiar gratitude, as having been 
marked with more than ordinary fulness of joy or 
clearness of teaching, is one passed, now some years 
ago, near time of sunset, among the masses of pine 
forest which skirt the course of the Ain, above the 
village of Champagnole, in the Jura. It is a spot 
which has all the solemnity, with none of the savage- 
ness, of the Alps ; where there is a sense of a great 
power beginning to be manifested in the earth, and of 



Mountain Architecture. 301 

a deep and majestic concord in the rise of the long 
low lines of piny hills, — the first utterance of those 
mighty mountain symphonies, soon to be more loudly 
lifted and wildly broken along the battlements of the 
Alps. But their strength is as yet restrained ; and 
the far-reaching ridges of pastoral mountain succeed 
each other, like the long and sighing swell which 
moves over quiet waters from some far-off stormy 
sea. 

" And there is a deep tenderness pervading that 
vast monotony. The destructive forces and the stern 
expression of the central ranges are alike withdrawn. 
No frost-ploughed, dust-encumbered paths of ancient 
glacier fret the soft Jura pastures ; no splintered 
heaps of ruin break the fair ranks of her forests ; no 
pale, defiled, or furious rivers rend their rude and 
changeful ways among her rocks. Patiently, eddy by 
eddy, the clear green streams wind along their well- 
known beds ; and under the dark quietness of the un- 
disturbed pines there spring up, year by year, such 
company of joyful flowers as I know not the like 
among all the blessings of the earth." 

Long faults, or fractures, where the strata 
have been first bent and then broken, and after- 
wards have been forced up or have slid down 
hundreds or even thousands of feet, are very 
numerous in mountain-ranges ; and by suddenly 
bringing quite a different set of rocks to the 



302 The Story of the Hills. 

surface, these faults cause considerable difficulty 
to the geologist, as he goes over the ground 
and endeavours to trace the positions of the 
different rocks. 

In these vast folds it sometimes happens 
that portions of older (and lower) strata are 
caught up and so embedded among those of 
newer rocks. It will therefore be readily per- 
ceived that to unravel the geological structure 
of a great mountain-chain is no easy task. 
We need not then be surprised if in some cases 
the arrangement of the rocks of mountains is 
not thoroughly understood. The wonder is, 
when we think of the numerous difficulties 
which the geologist encounters, — the arduous 
ascents, the precipices, glaciers, snowfields ob- 
scuring the rocks from his view, the overlying 
soil of the lower parts, and the steep crests 
and dangerous ridges that separate the snow- 
fields, — that so much has already been discov- 
ered in this difficult branch of geology. 

However, the general arrangement of the 
rocks of which many mountain-chains are com- 
posed has been satisfactorily made out in not a 
few cases. Let us look into some of these 
and see what has been discovered. 



Mountain Architecture. 303 

You will remember the structure of the 
Weald, described in chap, vii., pp. 235-238, and 
how we showed that a great low arch of chalk 
strata has been entirely removed over that area, 
so that at the present time only its ends are seen 
forming the escarpments of the North and South 
Downs. This area, then, is now a great open 
valley, or rather a gently undulating plain en- 
closed by low chalk hills. Now, an arch of this 
kind is called an " anticline," and it might have 
been expected that it would have remained more 
or less unbroken to the present day. Why, then, 
has it suffered destruction ? 

In the first place, chalk is a soft rock, and one 
that rain water can dissolve ; but more than that, 
its arch-like structure was against it, and its 
chance of preservation was decidedly small. In 
architecture the arch is the most firm and stable 
structure that can be made ; but not so with 
strata, and this is the reason. Such an arch was 
not made of separate blocks, closely fitting and 
firmly cemented together ; on the contrary, the 
arch w r as stretched and heaved up from below. 
It therefore must have been more or less cracked 
up ; for rocks are apt to split when bent, although 
when deeply buried under a great thickness of 



304 The Story of the Hills. 

overlying rocks, they will bend very considerably 
without snapping. But this was not the case 
here. And so the forces of denudation set to 
work upon an already somewhat broken mass of 
rock. Try to picture to yourself this old low 
arch of chalk as it was when it first appeared as 
dry land. Probably some of it had already 
been planed away by the waves of the sea, and 
what was left was by no means well calculated to 
withstand the action of the agents of denudation. 
If }*ou look back to the figure, you will see the 
dotted lines showing the former outline of this 
anticline, or arch, and you perceive at once that 
the strata must haye been sloping outwards 
away from the middle. Now. this one fact 
greatly influenced its fate, for an anticline 
cannot be regarded as a strong or stable arrange- 
ment of strata. It is easy to see why ; suppose 
a little portion were cut away on one side at its 
base by some stream. It is clear that a kind of 
overhanging cliff would be left, and blocks of 
chalk would sooner or later come rolling down 
into the valley of the little stream. When these 
had fallen, they would leaye an inclined plane 
down which others would follow : and this would 
continue to take place until the top of the arch 



Mountain Architecture. 305 

was reached. The same reasoning applies to the 
other side. It is very seldom that arches, or 
anticlines, can last for a long time. The outward 
slope of the strata and their broken condition 
are against them. 

But when the rocks dip inwards, to form a 
kind of trough or basin, it is just the opposite. 
Such basins are known as " synclines ; " and a 
structure of this kind can be shown to be much 
more stable and permanent than an anticline. 
The strata, instead of being stretched out and 
cracked open, have been squeezed together. 

It is very important to bear this in mind, 
and to remember how differently anticlines and 
synclines are affected ; for this simple rule is 
illustrated over and over again in mountain- 
ranges : — 

Anticlines, being unstable, are worn away until 
they become valleys. 

Synclines, being stable, are left and frequently 
form mountains. 

Now look at the section through the Appala- 
chian chain (see Fig. 1), and you will see that 
each hill is a syncline, and the valleys between 
them are anticlines. This happens so fre- 
quently that almost every range of mountains 

20 



306 The Story of the Hills. 

furnishes examples ; but as every rule has its 
exceptions, so this one has, and we may find 
an example in the case of the Jura Mountains 
outside the Alps. 

It will be seen from the section that the ridges 
are formed by anticlines, and the valleys by syn- 
clines. But on looking a little more closely, we 
see that the tops of the former have suffered a 
considerable amount of erosion (as indicated by 
the dotted lines). Now, the reason why they 
have not been completely worn down into val- 
leys is that these rocks were once covered by 
others overlying them, so that this outer cover- 
ing of rocks had first to be removed before they 
could be attacked by rain and rivers. These 
wave-like ridges of the Jura are being slowly 
worn down ; and the time must come when they 
will be carved out into valleys, while the syn- 
clines between them will stand out as hills. It 
is simply a question of time. But many moun- 
tain-chains have a far more complicated struc- 
ture than that of the Appalachians, and consist 
of violently crumpled and folded strata (see 
section of Mont Blanc, Fig. 3). 

It might naturally be asked how such sec- 
tions are made, considering that we cannot cut 



Mountain Architecture. 



307 






308 The Story of the Hills. 

through mountains in order to find out their 
structure ; but Nature cuts them up for us, 
gashing their sides with ravines and valleys 
carved out by streams and rivers, and in steep 
cliffs and precipices we find great natural sec- 
tions that serve our purpose almost equally well. 
Sometimes, however, we get considerable help 
from quarries and railway-cuttings. 

Take, for example, one of the synclinal folds 
in the Appalachian chain. Its structure is 
ascertained somewhat as follows. Suppose you 
began to ascend the hill, armed with a good 
map, a pocket-compass, a clinometer, — a little 
instrument for measuring the angles at which 
strata dip or slope, — and with a bag on your 
back for specimens of rocks and fossils. At 
the base of the hill you might notice at starting 
a certain layer of rock — say a limestone — ex- 
posed by the side of the stream. It will be so 
many feet thick, and will contain such-and-such 
fossils, by means of which }<ou can identify it ; 
and it will dip into the interior of the hill at 
a certain angle, as measured by the clinometer 
As you rise higher, this rock may be succeeded 
by sandstone of a certain thickness, and like- 
wise clipping into the hill ; and so with the 



Mountain Architecture. 309 

other rocks that follow, until you reach the 
summit. 

By the time you have reached the top of the 
hill, you know the nature of all the rocks up 
that side, and the way they dip ; and all your 
observations are carefully recorded in a note- 
book. Then you begin to descend on the other 
side, and in so doing you find the same set of 
rocks coining out at the surface all in the same 
order ; only this order is now reversed, because 
you are following them downwards instead of 
upwards. Of course they are hidden in many 
places by soil and loose stones ; but that does 
not matter, because at other places they are ex- 
posed to view, especially along ravines, carved 
out of the mountain-side. Also rocks " weather " 
so differently that they can often be distin- 
guished even at a distance. 

In this kind of way you can find out the 
structure of a mountain, and draw a section of 
it when you get home, by following out and 
completing the curves of the strata as indicated 
at or near the surface ; and you find they fit in 
nicely together. 

Fig. 3 (see page 307) represents what is 
believed to be the general arrangement of the 



310 The Story of the Hills. 

rocks of Mont Blanc. The section is greatly 
simplified, because many minor folds and all 
the faults, or dislocations, are omitted. Now, 
in this case we have an example of what 
is known as the " fan-structure." It will be 
seen at once that the folds have been consider- 
ably squeezed together ; and the big fold in the 
centre indicated by dotted lines has been so 
much compressed in the lower part — that is, 
in what is now Mont Blanc — that its sides 
were brought near to each other until they 
actually sloped inwards instead of outwards. 

You may easily imitate this structure by 
taking a sheet of paper, laying it on the table, 
and then, putting one hand on each side of it, 
cause it to rise up in a central fold by pressing 
your hands towards each other. Notice care- 
fully what happens. First, you get a low arch, 
or anticline, like that of the Weald. Then as 
you press it more, the upward fold becomes 
sharper and narrower ; then continue pressing 
it, and you will find the fold bulging out at the 
top, but narrowing in below until you get this 
fan-structure. 

This is just what has happened in the case of 
the Alps. A tremendous lateral pressure applied 



Mountain Architecture. 311 

to the rocks heaved them up and down into great 
and small folds, and in some places, as in Mont 
Blanc, fan-structure was produced. Imagine 
the top of the fan removed, and you get what 
looks like a syncline, but is really the lower part 
of a very much compressed anticline. 

Now, it is believed that all mountain-ranges 
have been enormously squeezed by lateral pres- 
sure ; and the little experiment with the sheet of 
paper furnishes a good illustration of what has 
happened. A table-cloth lying on a smooth 
table will serve equally well. You can easily 
push it into a series of folds ; notice how they 
come nearer as you continue pushing. You see 
also that in this way you get long narrow 
ridges with valleys between. These represent 
the original anticlines and synclines of moun- 
tain-ranges, which in course of time are carved 
out, as explained above, until the synclines 
become hills and the anticlines valleys. 

Every mountain-chain must originally have 
had long ridges like these, which in some cases 
determined the original directions of the streams 
and valleys ; and it is easy to see now why 
mountain-chains are long and narrow, why their 
strata have been so. greatly folded, and why 



312 The Story of the Hills. 

we get in every mountain-chain long ranges 
of hills roughly parallel with each other (see 
chapter vi., pages 177-178). 

The reason why granite, gneiss, and crystal- 
line schists are frequently found in the central 
and highest peaks of mountain-ranges is that we 
have the oldest and lowest rocks exposed to the 
surface, on account of the enormous amount of 
denudation that has taken place. There may 
be great masses of granite underlying all moun- 
tain-chains ; but it is only exposed to view when 
a very great deal of overlying rock has been 
removed. 

It was thought at one time that granite was 
the oldest of all rocks, and that mountain-chains 
had been upheaved by masses of granite push- 
ing them up from below ; but w r e know now 
that both these ideas are mistaken. Some 
granites are certainly old geologically, but others 
are of later date ; and it is certain that granite 
was not the upheaving agent, but more likely it 
followed the overlying rocks as they were 
heaved up by lateral pressure, because the up- 
ward bending of the rocks would tend to relieve 
the enormous pressure clown below, and so the 
granite would rise up. 



Mottntain Architechire. 313 

We now pass on to a very different example, 
where mountains are the result of huge frac- 
tures and displacements : namely, the numerous 
and nearly parallel ranges of the Great Basin, of 
Western Arizona, and Northern Mexico. The 
region between the Sierra Nevada and the 
Wahsatch Mountains; extending from Idaho to 
Mexico, is composed of very gently folded rocks 
deeply buried in places by extensive outflows of 
lava. 

Now, in this case the earth-movements caused 
great cracks, or splits, doubtless attended by 
fearful earthquakes. We find here a series of 
nearly parallel fractures, hundreds of miles long, 
and fifteen to thirty miles apart. These trav- 
erse the entire region, dividing the rocks into 
long narrow blocks. There is evidence to show 
that the whole region was once much more ele- 
vated than it is now, and has subsided thou- 
sands of feet. During the subsidence along 
these lines of fracture, or faults, the blocks 
were tilted sideways ; and the uptilted blocks, 
carved by denudation, form the isolated ranges 
of this very interesting region (see illustration, 
chap, viii., p. 273, Fig. 1). The faults are indi- 
cated by arrows pointing downwards ; and the 



314 The Story of the Hills. 

dotted lines indicate the erosion of the up tilted 
blocks. 

But this must be regarded as a very excep- 
tional case, for we do not know of any other 
mountain-range formed quite in the same way. 
Why the strata, although only slightly bent, 
should have snapped so violently in this case, 
while in other mountain-ranges they have suf- 
fered much more bending without so much 
fracture and displacement, we cannot tell, but 
can only suggest that possibly it was because 
they were not buried up under an enormous 
thickness of overlying rocks, which would ex- 
ert an enormous downward pressure, and so tend 
to prevent fracturing. 

There are many other deeply interesting ques- 
tions with regard to the upheaval of mountains 
which, at present cannot be answered. 

We have already learned to alter our precon- 
ceived ideas about the stability and immovable 
nature of the earth's crust, and have seen that 
it is in reality most unstable, and is undergoing 
continual movements, both great and small. 
But here we have an equally startling discov- 
ery, which quite upsets all our former ideas of 
the hard and unyielding nature of the rocks 



Mountain Architecture. 315 

composing the earth's crust ; for we find that 
not only can they be bent into innumerable 
folds and little puckerings, but that in some 
cases they have been drawn out and squeezed 
as if they were so much soft putty. The imagi- 
nation almost fails to grasp such facts as these. 

Of late years geologists in Switzerland and in 
Great Britain have discovered that in some 
parts of mountains rocks have been enor- 
mously distorted and crushed, so that they have 
assumed very different states from those in 
which they were made, and curious mineral 
changes have taken place under the influence 
of this crushing. 

In the very complicated region of the North- 
west Highlands of Sutherland and Ross, the 
structure of which has only lately been ex- 
plained, some wonderful discoveries of this 
nature have been made. Certain of the crys- 
talline schists found there have been formed by 
the crushing down and rearrangement of older 
rocks that once presented a very different ap- 
pearance. In this district, where the rocks have 
been squeezed by enormous lateral pressure, the 
dislocations sometimes have assumed the form of 
inclined or undulating planes, the rocks above 



316 The Story of the Hills. 

which have been actually pushed over those be- 
low, and in some cases the horizontal displace- 
ment amounts to many miles. 

Not only have the rocks been ruptured, and 
older, deep-seated masses been torn up and 
driven bodily over younger strata (that once 
were above them), but there has been at the 
same time such an amount of internal shearing 
as to crush the rocks into a finely divided ma- 
terial, and to give rise to a streaky arrangement 
of the broken particles, closely resembling the 
flow-structure of a lava. In the crushed mate- 
rial new minerals have been sometimes so 
developed as to produce a true schist. 1 

1 Geikie. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE AGES OF MOUNTAINS, AND OTHER QUESTIONS. 

O Earth, wbat changes hast thou seen ! 

Tennyson. 

It might naturally be asked at what period 
in the world's primeval or geological history 
some particular mountain-range was upheaved ; 
whether it is younger or older than another 
one perhaps not very far away ; and again, 
whether the mountain-chains of the world 
have been uplifted all at once, or whether 
the process of elevation was prolonged and 
gradual ? 

Questions such as these are deeply interest- 
ing, and present to the geologist some of the 
most fascinating problems to be met with in the 
whole range of this science. And though at 
first sight they might seem hopelessly beyond 
our reach, yet even here the prospect is by 
no means unpromising ; and it is quite possible 
to show that they can be answered to some 
extent. Here we shall find our illustration of 



318 The Story of the Hills. 

the cathedral (see chapter v.. pages 143-147) 
holds good once more. 

It is perhaps hardly necessary to explain 
that by looking at a Gothic cathedral one can 
say at what period or periods it was built. 
Perhaps it has a Norman nave, with great pil- 
lars and rounded arches. Then the chancel 
might be Early English, with pointed windows 
and deep mouldings, and other features that 
serve to mark the style of the building, and 
therefore its date. — because different styles 
prevailed at different periods. Other parts 
might contain work easily recognised as be- 
longing to the " Perpendicular " period. 

Now, as there have been periods in the 
history of architecture and art, so there have 
been periods in the history of our earth. 
What these periods were, and how we have 
learned to recognise them, we must first very 
briefl} 7 describe. 1 

There are two simple rules b} r which the 
age of an ordinary sedimentary rock may be 
ascertained. This is fixed (1) By its position 
with regard to others; (2) By the nature of its 

1 For a fuller account see the writer's " Autobiography of the 
Earth." 



Ages of Mountains. 319 

embedded animal or vegetable remains, known 
as fossils. 

These rules may easily be illustrated by a 
reference to the methods of the antiquary. For 
instance, suppose you were going to build a 
house, and the foundations had just been dug 
out ; you might on examining them find several 
old layers of soil, showing that the site or neigh- 
bourhood had been formerly occupied. You 
might find in one layer stone implements, in 
another Roman or early British pottery, and yet 
again portions of brick or stonework, together 
with tools or articles of domestic use, belonging, 
say, to the time of Queen Elizabeth. Now, which 
of these layers would be the oldest ? It is quite 
clear that the lowest layers must have been there 
the longest, because the others accumulated on 
the top of them. 

The explorations made of late years under 
Jerusalem have led to the interesting discovery 
that the modern city is built up on the remains 
of thirteen former cities of Jerusalem, all of 
which have been destroyed in one way or an- 
other. Here, again, it is quite clear that the 
oldest layer of debris must be that which lies at 
the bottom, and the newest will be the one on 
the top. 



320 The Story of the Hills. 

Again, you know that the " Stone Age " in 
Britain came before the Roman occupation. 
Those old stone implements were made by a 
barbarous race, who knew very little of agricul- 
ture or the arts of civilisation. Then in succeed- 
ing centuries various arts were introduced, many 
relics of which are found buried in the soil ; and 
hence, since different styles of art and architec- 
ture prevailed at different periods, the works of 
art or industry embedded in any old layers of 
soil serve to fix the date of those layers. 

These layers of soil and debris correspond to 
the layers or strata of the sedimentary rocks, in 
which the different chapters of the world's his- 
tory are recorded. Geology is only another kind 
of history ; and the same principles which guide 
the archaeologist searching buried cities also 
guide the geologist in reading the stony record. 
As the illustrious Hutton said, " The ruins of 
an older world are visible in the present state of 
our planet." The successive layers of ruin in 
this case are to be seen in the great series of the 
stratified rocks ; and we may lay it down as an 
axiom that the lowest strata are the oldest, un- 
less by some subsequent disturbance the order 
should have been reversed, which, fortunately, 
is a rare occurrence, though examples are to 



Ages of Mountains. 321 

be found in some mountain-chains with violent 
foldings. 

But it often happens that neither the strata 
which should come above nor those that lie be- 
low can be seen. Then our second rule comes 
in : We can determine the age of the rock in 
question by its fossils. The reason of this has 
perhaps already been guessed by the reader. It 
is that as different kinds of plants and animals 
have prevailed at different periods of the world's 
history, so there have been "styles," or fashions, 
in creation, as well as in art. At one geological 
period certain curious types of fishes flourished 
which are now almost extinct, only a few old- 
fashioned survivals being found in one or 
two out-of-the-way places. At another period 
certain types of reptiles flourished vigorously, 
and were the leaders in their day ; but they 
have altogether vanished and become extinct. 
So one type after another has appeared on the 
scene, played its humble part in the great 
drama of life; and then — "exit!" another 
takes its place. 

In the oldest and lowest of the series of rocks 

we find no certain trace of life at all. In the 

next series we find only lowly creatures, such 

as shell-fish, corals, and crab-like animals that 

21 



322 The Story of the Hills. 

have no backbone. In a higher group of rocks 
fishes appear for the first time. Later on, we 
come across the remains of amphibious creatures 
for the first time. Then follows (after a long 
unrecorded interval) an era when reptiles and 
birds existed in great numbers. After another 
long interval we come to strata containing many 
and diverse remains of mammals or quadrupeds. 
So we have an " Age of Fishes," an " Age of 
Reptiles," and an " Age of Mammals." Some 
tribes of these creatures died out, but others lived 
on to the present day. Thus we see that there 
has been a continuous progress in life as the world 
grew older, for higher types kept coming in. 

To the geologist fossils are of the greatest 
possible use, since they help him to determine 
the age of a particular set of strata, for certain 
kinds of fossils belong to certain rocks, and to 
them only. 

But the classification of the stratified rocks 
has been carried farther than this. Practical 
geologists, working in the field, use fossils as their 
chief guide in working out the subdivisions of a 
group of rocks, for certain genera and species of 
old plants and animals are found to belong to 
certain small groups of strata. In this way a 
definite order of succession has been established 



Ages of Mountains. 323 

once for all ; and, except in the case of inverted 
strata already alluded to, this order is invariably 
found to hold good. - 

This great discovery of the order of succession 
of the British stratified rocks, established by 
their fossil contents, is due to William Smith, 
the father of English geology. After exploring 
the whole of England, he published in 1815 a 
geological map, the result of his extraordinary 
labours. Before then people had no idea of a 
definite and regular succession of rocks extend- 
ing over the country, capable of being recognised 
to some extent by the nature of the rocks them- 
selves, — whether sandstones, clays, or lime- 
stones, etc., but chiefly by their own fossils. 
They thought the different kinds of rocks were 
scattered promiscuously up and down the face of 
the country ; but now we know that they do 
not show themselves in this haphazard way, but 
have definite relations to each other, like the 
many volumes of one large book. 

By combining the two principles referred to 
above, geologists have arranged the great series 
of British stratified rocks into certain groups, 
each indicating a long period of time. First, they 
are roughly divided into three large groups, mark- 
ing the three great eras into which geological 



124 



The Story of the Hills. 



time is divided. Secondly, these eras are fur- 
ther divided into certain periods. These periods 
are again divided into epochs, indicated by local 
divisions of their rocks. In this way we have 
something like a historical table. Omitting the 
small epochs of time, this table is as follows, 
in descending order : — 



Era. 



Cainozoic. 

or 
Tertiary. 



Mesozoic, 

or 
Secondary. 



Palaeozoic, 

or 
Primary. 



Mammals. 



Table of the British Stratified Rocks. 

Period. Prevailing Type. 

Recent. 
Pleistocene, 

or 
Quaternary. 
Pliocene. 
Miocene. 
Eocene. 

Cretaceous. 

Neocomian. 
\ Jurassic. 

Triassic. 
i Permian. 

Carboniferous. 
Devonian, and 
Old Red Sandstone. 
Silurian. 
Cambrian. 
Archaean, 1 

or 
Pi-e-Cambrian. 



Reptiles. 



Fishes. 



Creatures without 
a backbone (inverte- 
brates). 



1 The Archaean rocks are frequently placed in a separate group 
below the Palaeozoic. 



Ages of Mountains. 325 

The total thickness of all these rocks has 
been estimated at about one hundred thousand 
feet, or not far from twenty miles. These 
names have been given partly from the region 
in which the rocks occur, partly from the nature 
of the rocks themselves, and partly for other 
reasons. Thus the Old Red Sandstone is so 
called, because it generally, though not always, 
appears as a dark red sandstone. But the 
Silurian rocks, which we find in North Wales, 
receive their name from the Silures, an ancient 
Welsh tribe ; the Cambrian rocks take theirs 
from Cambria, the old name for North Wales. 
The Cretaceous rocks are partly composed of 
chalk, for which the Latin word is creta ; and 
so on. The terms " Palaeozoic," " Mesozoic," 
and "Cainozoic" mean "ancient life," "middle 
life," and " recent or new life," thus indicating 
that as time went on the various types of life 
that flourished on the earth became less old- 
fashioned, and more like those prevailing at 
the present time. These used to be called 
" Primary," " Secondary," and " Tertiary ; " but 
the terms were unfortunate, because the pri- 
mary rocks, as then known, were not the first, 
or oldest. We have therefore included the 



326 The Story of the Hills. 

Archaean rocks, since discovered, in this 
primary group. Only one fossil has been 
found in these rocks, and that is a doubtful 
one ; hence they are sometimes called " Azoic," 
that is, " without life." The Mesozoic rocks are, 
as it were, the records of the " middle ages " in 
the world's history ; while the Palaeozoic take 
us back to a truly primeval time. 

We have now learned how the geological 
age of any group of rocks may be determined. 
Thus, if a series of rocks of unknown age can 
be shown to rest on undoubtedly Silurian rocks 
in one place, and in another place to be overlaid 
or covered by undoubtedly Carboniferous rocks, 
they will probably belong to the Old Red Sand- 
stone Period. If afterwards we find that they 
contain some of the well-known fossils of that 
period, the question of their age is settled at 
once. But we want more evidence than this. 
Suppose, now, we find somewhere on the flanks 
of a mountain -range -a series of Permian and 
Triassic rocks, resting almost horizontally on 
disturbed and folded Carboniferous strata. Does 
not that at once prove that the upheaval took 
place before the Permian Period ? Clearly it 
does, because the Permian rocks have evidently 



Ages of Mountains. 327 

not been disturbed thereby. So now we can fix 
the date of our range of hills ; namely, after the 
Carboniferous Period and before the Permian 
Period. 

It is by such reasoning that the age of our 
Pennine range of hills, extending from the north 
of England into Derbyshire, has been fixed ; for 
the Permian and Triassic strata lie undisturbed 
on the upheaved arch of Carboniferous rocks of 
which this chain is composed. Its structure is 
that of a broken and much denuded anticline, 
which stands up to form a line of hills only be- 
cause the Carboniferous limestone is so much 
harder than the " coal measures," or coal-bear- 
ing rocks, on each side of it, that it has not been 
worn away so fast. In time, this great anti- 
cline will be entirely worn away like that of the 
Weald. It is called the Great Mountain Lime- 
stone, because it so often rises up to form high 
ground. The Mendip Hills in Somersetshire are 
of about the same date, and they too are largely 
composed of this great limestone formation. 

Of course, a certain amount of up and down 
movement took place after the hills were up- 
heaved, otherwise the Permian and Triassic 
rocks could not have been deposited on their 



328 The Story of the Hills. 

sides ; but these movements were slight and of 
a more general kind than those by which strata 
are thrown into folds. 

The main upheaval, by which the rocks now 
forming the Highlands of Scotland were lifted 
up and contorted, took place after the Lower 
Silurian Period, and before that of the Old Red 
Sandstone ; and there is clear evidence that even 
before the latter period they had not only been 
greatly altered, or " metamorphosed," by subter- 
ranean heat, but that they had suffered enor- 
mous denudation. And the work of carving out 
these mountains has gone on ever since ; for 
even in Old Red Sandstone times they were 
probably not entirely covered by water. The 
Highland Mountains are therefore older than 
the Pennine range. 

Geologically Scotland belongs in great part 
to Scandinavia ; and the long line of Scan- 
dinavian Mountains is a continuation of the 
Highlands, and so is of the same age. 

Mountain-chains and hill-ranges have been 
upheaved at various geological periods ; and 
some are very old, while others are much 
younger. 

Turning to the southeast of England, we find 



Ages of Mountains. 329 

the ranges of chalk hills forming the North and 
South Downs (see page 237). As explained 
previously, these owe their existence to the up- 
heaval and subsequent denudation of the low 
arch, or anticline, of the Weald. They are 
called " escarpments," because they are like 
lines of cliffs that are being gradually cut 
back. Now, it is clear that these hills are 
much newer than either of those we have 
just considered. Look at the table on page 
324, and you will see that the Cretaceous rocks 
(chalk, etc.) belong to the Mesozoic era. The 
chalk was the last rock formed during the 
Cretaceous Period. 

So the Wealden arch must have been heaved 
up after the chalk was formed ; that is, ages 
and ages later than the date of the Pennine 
range or the Scotch Highlands. From other 
evidences it has been shown that this anti- 
cline was heaved up in the early part of the 
Cainozoic Era, perhaps during the Miocene 
Period. 

Let us now take the case of the Alps. And 
here we have an instructive example of a great 
mountain system formed by repeated movements 
during a long succession of geological periods. 



330 The Story of the Hills. 

We cannot say that they were entirely raised up 
at any one time in the world's past history. In 
the centre of this great range we find a series of 
igneous and metamorphic rocks, such as granite, 
gneiss, and crystalline schists. Some of these 
may belong to the very oldest period, — namely, 
the Archaean ; others are probably Palaeozoic and 
Cainozoic deposits greatly altered by heat and 
pressure. 

The ground from Savoy to Austria began to 
be an area of disturbance and upheaval towards 
the close of the Palseozoic Era, if not before ; so 
that crystalline schists and Carboniferous strata 
were raised up to form elevated land around 
which Permian conglomerates and shingle-beds 
were formed, — as on the seashore at the pres- 
ent day. 

During the early part of the Mesozoic Era 
local fractures and certain up and down move- 
ments occurred. After this there was a long 
period of subsidence, during which a series of 
strata known as Oolites and Cretaceous were 
deposited on the floor of an old sea. 

Towards the close of this long era, a fresh 
upheaval took place along the present line of 
the Alps, — an upheaval that was prolonged into 



Ages of Mountains. 331 

the Eocene Period. It was during this latter 
period that a very extensive formation known 
as the "Nummulitic limestone" was formed in 
a sea that covered a large part of Europe and 
Asia. We have already referred (see chap, v., 
pp. 169-171) to the way in which limestones 
have been formed. Nummulites are little shells 
that were formed by tiny shell-fish. 

But after this, the greatest upheaval and dis- 
turbance took place, — an upheaval to which the 
Alps as we now see them are chiefly due. By 
this means the older Cainozoic strata, once lying 
horizontally on the floor of the sea, were raised 
up, together with older rocks, to form dry 
land, and not only raised up, but crumpled, 
dislocated, and in some cases turned upside 
down. 

So intense was the compression to which the 
Eocene rocks were subjected that they were con- 
verted into a hard and even crystalline state. 
It seems almost incredible that these highly 
altered rocks which look so ancient are of the 
same date as our London clay and the soft 
Eocene deposits of the south of England ; but 
in our country the movement that raised up 
those strata was of the most feeble and gentle 



332 The Story of the Hills. 

kind compared to the violent disturbances that 
took place in Switzerland. 

And here we may point out that the Alps are 
only a portion of a vast chain of mountains 
stretching right across Europe and Asia in a 
general east and west direction, beginning with 
the Pyrenees and passing through the Alps, the 
Carpathians, the Caucasus, and the range of El- 
bruz to the Hindoo-Koosh and the high plateau 
of Pamir, called " the roof of the world," which 
stands like a huge fortress, fifteen thousand feet 
high. Thence it passes to the still higher tracts 
of Thibet, great plains exceeding in height the 
highest summits of the Alps, being enclosed be- 
tween the lofty ramparts of the Himalayas on 
the south and the Kuen-Lun Mountains on the 
north ; and thence the mountain wall is pro- 
longed in the Yuen-Ling, In-Shan, Khin-Gan, and 
other ranges till it finally passes to the Pacific 
Ocean at Beh ring's Strait. 

All these ranges are, as it were, the backbone 
of the great continental jDlateau of the Old 
World, and doubtless are chiefly due to those 
earth-movements by means of which the Alps 
were upheaved. The last grand movement, 
which raised the Mont Blanc range, was prob- 



Ages of Mountains. 333 

ably rather later, and seems to have taken 
place as late as the Pliocene Period. 

At the present day no great movements are 
taking place in the Alps ; but now and then 
earthquakes visit this region, and serve to re- 
mind us that the process of mountain-making 
is still slowly going on. 

Probably there have been times in the his- 
tory of all these mountain-ranges when move- 
ments took place of a more violent and con- 
vulsive kind than anything with which we 
are familiar at the present day ; and the age 
we live in may be one of comparative repose. 
This is of course somewhat a matter of specu- 
lation ; and we only allude to it because there 
has been a tendency on the part of some to 
carry the theory of uniformity in all geo- 
logical operations much farther than Hutton 
or Lyell ever intended. But at the same time 
there is no need to go back to the old teaching 
of sudden catastrophes and violent revolutions. 
We only wish to avoid either of these two 
extremes and to take a safe middle course. 

How rapidly some of these great earth- 
movements took place it is impossible at present 
to say ; but in several cases it can be shown 



334 The Story of the Hills. 

that they were quite slow, as indicated by 
the testimony of the rivers. Thus, the rise of 
the great Uintah Mountains of the Western 
States was so slow and gradual that the Green 
River, which flowed across the site of the 
range, so far from being turned aside as the}* 
rose up, has actually been able to deepen its 
canon as fast as the mountains were upheaved. 
So that the two processes, as it were, kept pace 
with each other, and the river went on cutting 
out its gorges at the same time that the ground 
over which it flowed was gently upheaved ; and 
as the land rose the river flowed faster, and 
therefore acquired more power to cut and deepen 
its channel. This is a valuable piece of evi- 
dence ; but in this case we have only a few big 
broad folds, instead of the violent folding seen 
in the Alps. However, certain Pliocene strata 
lying on the southern flanks of the Himalayas 
show that the rivers still run in the same lines 
as they occupied before the last great upheaval 
took place. 

We have seen how the substance of the moun- 
tains was slowly manufactured by means of such 
quiet and gentle operations as may be witnessed 
at the present day ; how the rivers of old 



Ages of Mountains. 335 

brought down their burdens as they do now, and 
flung them into the sea ; how the sea spread 
them out very slowly and compacted them into 
level layers, to form, in process of time, the hard 
rocky framework of the plateaux, hills, and 
mountains of the world ; how vast marine 
accumulations were also slowly manufactured 
through the agency of countless generations of 
humble organisms, subtracting carbonate of 
lime from sea water to form the limestones of 
future ages ; how by slow earth-movements 
these marine deposits were reared up into dry 
land ; how they have frequently been pene- 
trated by molten rocky matter from below, 
which occasionally forced its way up to the 
surface and gave rise to various volcanic erup- 
tions, by means of which the sedimentary rocks 
were often considerably baked and hardened, 
and new fissures filled up with valuable metallic 
ores and precious stones ; how lava-flows and 
great deposits of volcanic ash were mingled 
with these sedimentary rocks. 

Then we endeavoured to follow the history of 
these rocky layers after their upheaval, and learn 
how they are affected by the ceaseless operations 
of rain and rivers and other agents of destruc- 



336 The Story of the Hills. 

tion, so that finally the upheaved ridges of the 
lands are carved out into all those wonderful 
features of crag and pinnacle and precipice that 
give the mountains their present shapes and 
outlines. All this we were able to account for, 
without the aid of any imaginary or unnatural 
causes. 

And, lastly, we have seen that even where 
such causes might seem at first almost indis- 
pensable, — when mountains tell us of mighty 
internal forces crumpling, folding, and fractur- 
ing their rocky framework, — yet even there we 
can account for what we see without supposing 
them to have been torn and tossed about by 
any very violent convulsions. 

Although the question of the cause, or causes, 
of earth-movements, whereby continents are 
upheaved, and the contorting, folding, and 
crumpling of the rocks of mountains produced, 
is not at present thoroughly explained, it may 
perhaps be worth our while to consider briefly 
some of the views that have been put forward 
on this difficult subject. The words " upheaval " 
and " elevation," in reference to movements 
of the earth's surface, are somewhat misleading, 
but are used for want of better terms. They 




MOUNTAIN T'N THE YOSEMTTE VALLEY. 



Ages of Mountains. 337 

would seem to imply that the force which 
produced mountains was a kind of upward 
push ; whereas, in most cases, and perhaps in 
all, the force, whatever it was, did not act in 
an upward direction. So it should be under- 
stood that we employ these terms only to 
indicate that the rocks have somehow been 
carried up to a higher level, and not as sug- 
gesting hoiu the force acted by which they 
were raised. 

It seems pretty clear that in the case of 
mountain-chains, at least, the force acted in 
a horizontal direction, as a kind of side- 
thrust. 

This we endeavoured to illustrate in chap- 
ter ix. by means of a simple experiment with 
a sheet of paper ; and it was shown how folds 
similar to those of which Mont Blanc is com- 
posed could be imitated by simply pressing 
the sides of a sheet of paper inwards with 
one's two hands as it lies on a table. Such 
lateral pressure, it is thought by many, must be 
caused by the shrinking of the lower and hotter 
parts of the earth's crust as they cool, leaving 
the outer crust unsupported, so that it gradually 
settles down onto a smaller surface below, and 

22 



338 The Story of the Hills. 

in so doing must inevitably be wrinkled and 
throw itself into a series of folds (see chapter 
vi., page 204). 

The interior of the earth is hotter than the 
outside ; and since there is good reason to think 
that the whole earth was once upon a time in a 
highly heated and perhaps half molten condi- 
tion, we are compelled to believe that it always 
has been, and still is, a cooling globe. Now, 
almost all known substances are found to con- 
tract more or less on cooling ; and so if the 
materials of which the earth is mainly composed 
are at all similar in their nature and properties 
to those which we find on its surface, it fol- 
lows that the earth must be contracting at the 
same time that it is cooling, just as a red-hot 
poker will contract on being taken out of the 
fire. 

Moreover, we find that hot bodies contract 
faster than those that are merely warm, so that 
a red-hot poker contracts more during the first 
few minutes after it is taken out of the fire than 
it does after it has passed the red-hot stage. 
Hence it is easy to see that the interior portions 
of the earth, which are hotter, must be contract- 
ing at a greater rate than its external parts, for 



Ages of Mountains. 339 

they evidently have very little heat to lose. 
This may seem rather puzzling to the reader at- 
first ; for it might be argued that the heat from 
below must pass through the external layers, or 
crust, as it is often called. But it should be re- 
membered that this is not the only way in which 
the earth loses heat. Think of the vast amount 
of heat given out from the earth every year by 
volcanic eruptions, and you will see at once that 
much of the cooling takes place in this way, 
and not as a direct flow of heat from the inte- 
rior, as in the case of the poker. A single big 
lava-stream flowing out from a volcano, and 
cooling on the surface of the earth, represents 
so much heat lost forever ; and so do the clouds 
of steam emitted during every eruption ; so, 
again, do even the hot springs that are continu- 
ally bringing up warm water. If, then, the 
lower portions of the earth are slowly contract- 
ing, they must tend to leave the outer portions 
of the crust unsupported, so that they would be 
compelled by their own enormous weight to 
settle down. Now, we know that something 
like this happens in coal mines ; and as long 
passages are hollowed out below, the ground 
begins to " creep," or slowly sink. Think what 



340 The Story of the Hills. 

would be the effect of a slow sinking of any 
portion of the earth down towards the centre ; 
it would inevitably be curved up and down into 
numerous folds, as it endeavoured to get itself 
onto a smaller space, much in the same way 
that a table-cloth, when thrown onto a table 
in a kind of arch, settles down in a series of 
waves, or folds. And this, it is thought, is 
the way in which it happens that the pressure 
comes, as we said just now, sideways, instead of 
from below upwards. It is on this theory that 
many geologists account for the enormous side- 
pressure to which rocks have in many cases 
been subjected. 

The evidences of such pressure are many. In 
some cases fossils have been thereby pulled out 
of shape and appear considerably distorted; in 
others, even hard quartz pebbles have been con- 
siderably elongated (see chap, ix., pp. 315—316). 
Then again, we have the little crumplings of all 
sizes so frequently seen in mica-schists. And 
lastly, the peculiar property that slates possess 
of splitting up into thin sheets is found to be 
due to the same cause ; namely, lateral pressure. 
Slates were originally formed of soft dark mud, 
and on being subsequently squeezed, by earth- 



Ages of Mountains. 341 

movements, have assumed a structure known as 
" cleavage," whereby their tiny mud-particles 
were elongated, and all assumed the same direc- 
tion, thus giving to the rock this peculiar prop- 
erty of splitting. It can be proved that the 
pressure came in a direction opposite to that of 
the planes of cleavage ; and it is found that the 
direction of the cleavage corresponds in a gen- 
eral way with the direction, or trend, of a moun- 
tain-chain which is composed partly of slates, as 
in North Wales. And this discovery helps and 
harmonises with what we have already said 
about the cause of the folds in mountain-chains, 
for the same force, acting sideways, produced the 
cleavage and the folding, etc. 

It has been already stated that in a large 
number of cases a mountain-range has a central 
axis, or band, of granite or other crystalline 
rock. This led some people to suppose that 
the granite had been driven up from below, 
and in so doing had thrust up the overlying 
rocks seen on either flank of the chain ; in 
other words, they believed granite to have been 
the upheaving agent. And even now we often 
find unscientific writers speaking of the volcanic 
forces of upheaval. 



342 The Story of the Hitls. 

Having very little idea of the true structure 
of mountains, they believed them to consist of 
a kind of core, or axis, of this igneous rock, 
with sedimentary rocks sloping away from it 
on each side. This was a very simple theory 
of mountain-chains, but unfortunately it will 
not bear examination. It takes no notice of 
the folding which is so characteristic of moun- 
tain strata, and is quite out of agreement 
with the facts of the case ; so it must be 
buried among the archives of the past. Moun- 
tain-chains are now known to have a much 
more complicated structure than this, — thanks 
to the labours of many subsequent observers. 

That illustrious astronomer, the late Sir 
John Herschel, threw out a bold suggestion 
on this subject, which in the light of recent 
discoveries with regard to the delicate adjust- 
ment between the internal and external forces 
affecting the earth's surface, is worthy of care- 
ful consideration. His idea was that the mere 
weight of a thick mass of sediment resting 
on any portion of the earth's crust might 
cause a certain amount of sinking; and that 
this would cause portions on either side to 
swell up. It is certain that as great deposits 



Ages of Mountains. 343 

of sedimentary materials accumulate on the floor 
of an ocean, that floor slowly sinks, otherwise 
the sea would become choked up, and dry land 
would take its place. Now, it is found that 
every great mountain-chain consists of many 
thousands of feet of strata thus formed ; and 
more than this : it turns out that a greater 
thickness of such materials has been formed in 
regions where we now see mountain-chains than 
in those continental regions that lie farther 
away from them. This is an important fact, 
which was not known in Sir John Herschel's 
time. One striking example may be mentioned 
here. In the complicated region of the Appa- 
lachian chain the strata are estimated to have a 
total thickness of eight miles ; while in Indiana, 
where the same strata are nearly horizontal, 
they are less than one mile thick. Hence it 
is not impossible that in the mere accumu- 
lation, through long periods of time, of vast 
masses of strata many thousands of feet 
thick, we may find a potent cause of earth- 
movements. 

The marginal regions of oceans, where most 
deposition takes place, seem to undergo slow 
subsidence, while the continents seem in most 



344 The Story of the Hills. 

places to be as slowly rising. Modern geologists 
are inclined to think that as denudation wears 
down a continental surface, removing from it a 
great quantity of solid rocky matter (see chap, v., 
pp. 161-163), the pressure below is somewhat 
lessened, or in other words, so much weight is 
taken off ; but that, on the other hand, as this 
extra amount of material accumulates on the 
bed of a neighbouring ocean the pressure is in- 
creased by a corresponding amount, and so the 
balance between internal and external forces is 
upset, and movements consequently take place. 
We have already seen that the external parts of 
the earth are much more subject to movements 
than might have been expected ; and for our 
part, we are willing to believe that in this sim- 
ple way upheaving forces might be called into 
play sufficient to account for even the elevation 
of mountain-chains. For suppose a great mass 
of strata to continue sinking as they were 
formed, for long periods of time ; what seems to 
follow ? The downward movement would go 
on until a time would come when the strata, in 
endeavouring to settle down at a lower level, 
would (as by the contraction theory above ex- 
plained) be forced to fold themselves into ridges, 



Ages of Mountains. 345 

and in this way long strips of them might even 
be elevated into mountain-ranges. 

Another ingenious idea was suggested by the 
late Mr. Scrope, whose work on volcanoes is 
well known. His idea was that when a large 
amount of sedimentary material has accumulated 
on any large area of the bed of the ocean, it 
somewhat checks the flow of heat from within, 
and therefore the temperature of the rocks 
forming part of the earth's crust below will be 
increased, much in the same manner as a glove 
checks the escape of heat from the hand and 
keeps it warm. The consequence of this would 
be expansion ; and as such expansion would be 
chiefly in a horizontal direction, the area 
would bulge upwards and cause elevation of 
the strata resting on it. But there are 
several difficulties which this theory fails to 
explain. 

And lastly, Professor Le Conte, holding that 
the contraction theory is unsatisfactory, ac- 
counts for earth-movements of all kinds by sup- 
posing that some internal parts of the earth cool 
and contract faster than others. Those parts 
that cool fastest, according to this theory, are 
those that underlie the oceanic basins or troughs ; 



346 The Story of the Hills. 

while the continental areas, not cooling so rap- 
idly, are left standing up in relief. This theory, 
which does not seem very satisfactory, is based 
upon the idea that some parts of the earth's in- 
terior may be capable of conducting heat faster 
than others. We know that some substances, 
like iron, are good conductors of heat, while 
others are bad conductors ; and it is therefore 
conceivable that heat may be flowing faster 
along some parts of the earth than along others; 
and if so, there would be differences in the rate 
of contraction. 

There are various theories with regard to 
the nature of the earth's interior. One of 
these already referred to, but now antiquated, 
supposes our planet to consist of a thin, solid 
crust lying on a molten interior, so that the 
world would be something like an egg with 
its thin shell and liquid, or semi-liquid, inte- 
rior. Now, there are grave reasons for refus- 
ing to accept this idea. In the first place, 
a certain slow movement of the earth known 
as "precession," because it causes the preces- 
sion of the equinoctial points on the earth's 
orbit, could not possibly take place as it does 



Ages of Mountains. 347 

if the earth's interior were in this loose and 
molten condition. That is a matter decided 
by mathematical calculation, on which we will 
not dwell further. Secondly, we obtain some 
very valuable evidence on this abstruse sub- 
ject from the well-known daily phenomenon 
of the tides, caused, as the reader is proba- 
bly aware, by the attractions of the sun and 
moon ; but much more by the moon, because 
she is nearer, and so exerts a greater pull on 
the ocean as each part of the world is brought 
directly under her by the earth's daily rota- 
tion on its axis. The waters of our oceans 
rise up twice each day as they get in a liue 
with the moon, and then begin to fall again. 
Thus we get that daily ebb and flow seen on 
our shores. Now, it has been clearly proved 
by Sir William Thomson, and others, that if 
any considerable portion of the interior of the 
earth were in a fluid condition, it too would 
rise and fall every day as the ocean does. 
So we should in that case have a tide beloiv 
the earth as well as on its surface, and the 
one would tend to neutralise the other, and 
the ocean tide ought to appear less than it 
actually is. Even if the earth's crust were 



348 The Story of the Hills. 

made of solid steel, and several hundreds of 
miles thick, it would yield so much to the 
enormous pulls exerted by both the sun and 
moon that it would simply carry the waters 
of the ocean up and down with it, and we 
should therefore see no appreciable rise and 
fall of the water relatively to the land. As 
a matter of fact, there is a very slight tide 
in the solid earth below our feet, but so 
slight that it does not practically affect the 
tide which we see every day in the ocean. 
But we wish to show that were the interior 
of the earth in anything approaching to a 
fluid or molten condition, the phenomena of 
the tides would be very different from what 
they actually are. 

All geologists are therefore agreed that we 
must consider our earth as a more or less 
solid body, and not as being something like 
an india-rubber ball filled with water. 

The only question is whether it is entirely 
solid throughout. Some authorities consider 
this to be the case. But others venture to 
think that while the great mass of the globe 
is solid, there may be a thin liquid layer 
lying somewhere below the surface. Sir Wil- 



Ages of Mountains. 349 

liam Thomson calculates that there must 
be a solid crust at least two thousand or 
twenty-five hundred miles thick (the diam- 
eter of the earth is about eight thousand 
miles) and that the mass of the earth "is 
on the whole more rigid certainly than a 
continuous solid globe of glass of the same 
diameter." 

One other question with regard to the 
earth's interior may be mentioned in conclu- 
sion. Astronomers have calculated the weight 
of our planet, and the result is curious ; for 
it turns out to be at least twice as heavy as 
the heaviest rocks that are found on or near 
the surface. It is about five and a half 
times as heavy as a globe of water of the 
same size would be, whereas most rocks with 
which we are acquainted are about two and 
a half, or at most three times heavier than 
water. This fact seems to open out curious 
consequences; for instance, it is quite possi- 
ble that metals (which are of course much 
heavier than water) may exist in the earth's 
interior in considerable quantities. The im- 
agination at once conjures up vast quanti- 



350 The Story of the Hills. 

ties of gold and silver. What is the source 
of the gold and silver, and other metals found 
in mineral veins ? This question cannot as 
yet be fully answered. Very small quantities 
of various metals have been detected in sea- 
water; and so some geologists look upon the 
sea as the source from which metals came. 
But it is possible that they were introduced 
from below, — perhaps by the action of steam 
and highly heated water during periods of vol- 
canic activity, — and that their source is far 
down below in the depths of the earth. 

But perhaps we have already wandered too 
far into the regions of speculation. 

Such are some of the interesting problems 
suggested by the study of mountains, and 
they add no small charm to the science of 
geology. 

And as we leave the mountains behind us, 
refreshed by their bracing air, and strength- 
ened for another season of toil and labour by 
a brief sojourn among their peaks and passes, 
we come away with a renewed sense of the 
almost unlimited power of the unhasting op- 
erations of Nature, and the wisdom and 
beneficence of the Great Architect of the 



Ages of Mountains. 351 

Universe, who made and planned those snow- 
capped temples as symbols of His strength, 
who was working millions of years ago as 
He is working to-day, and to whom a thou- 
sand years are as one day. 



INDEX. 



Agents of transportation, 161. 

Ages of strata, how determined, 317- 
333. 

Air, composition of, 209. 

Alpine animals, 124. 
plants, 103, 114. 

Alps, the history of, 330. (See also 
Ruskin.) 

Ancients, the, their dread of the 
mountains, 3. 

Andes, the, elevation of, 189. 

Animals, behaviour of, before an ava- 
lanche or earthquake, 95. 

"Anticline," 237, 303, 327. 

Appalachian Mountains, denudation 
of the, 239, 305-309. 

Aqueous rocks, 154. 

Archaean Era, 324. 

Arctic flora, 121. 

"Arthur's Seat," 277. 

Ashes, volcanic, 245, 251, 260. 

Atlantic ooze, 172. 

Atmosphere, effects produced bv the, 
209. 
rarefaction of, 79. 

Avalanches, 89. 



Badger, the, in Alps, 128. 
Baltic Sea, changes in, 182. 
Barrier reef, of Australia, 170. 
Basalt, of Hebrides, 278. 

of Snowdon, 272. 
Basin, the Great, of United States, 

313. 



Bear, brown, 125. 

black, 126. 
Beaver, the, in Alps, 128. 
Bergfalls, 97. 

Bernina, the, fall of rocks from. 98. 
Bird, Miss (Mrs. Bishop), on erup- 
tion of Kilauea, 262. 
Birds, of Alps, 134. 
Blueness of the sky, 75. 
Bombs, volcanic, 253. 
Bonnev, Prof., on mountain legends, 
23. 

on effects of the Alps in Europe, 
48. 

on wind on mountain-tops, 84. 

on Alpine plants, 115. 

on forms of mountains, 294. 
Boulders, erratic, 225. 
Bottquetin, the, in Alps, 133. 
Britain, Great, rainfall of, 42. 
Building up of mountains, 174. 
Butterflies, in Alps, 138. 
Buzzard, the, in Alps, 136. 



Cader Idris, volcano i - ocks of, 272. 

Cainozoic Era, 324. 

Callao, 189. 

Cambrian rocks, 296, 324. 

Canisp Mountain, 297. 

Canons of Colorado, 221. 

Carbonic acid in atmosphere, 210. 

Carboniferous Period, 324. 

Catastrophes, 215. 

Caves, human remains, etc., in, 31. 



354 



Index. 



Celsius, on elevation of Gulf of Both- 
nia, 178. 

Chalk, Cretaceous rocks composed of, 
325. 
origin of. See Limestones. 

Challenger, H. M. S., expedition of, 
251. 

Chamois, the, in Alps, 130. 

Characteristics of mountain races, 14. 

China clay, 292. 

Classification of rocks, 157. 

Cleavage of slates, 151, 340. 

Coniferous trees, region of, 111. 

Contortions in strata, 298, 311. 

Contraction and expansion of rocks, 
208. 

Contraction theory of earth-move- 
ments, 338. 

Coral reefs, 170. 

Cotopaxi, 259. 

Crystalline schists, 312. 

Darwin, Charles, on elevation of the 

Andes, 189. 
Deciduous trees, mountain region of, 

110. 
Dent de Mayen, 99. 
Dent du Midi, fall of rock from, 98. 
Denudation, 220, 229, 288, 312. 
Devonian rocks, 324. 
Diablerets, fall of rock from, 98. 
Dislocations of mountain rocks, 313, 

315. 
Dust, volcanic, 245, 260. 
Dykes, 245. 

Eagle, the golden, 136. 
Earth- pillars in Tyrol, 221. 
Earthquakes, 95, 102, 196. 

effects of, 198, 336. 

causes of, 198, 200. 

Lucretius on, 199. 
Earth-tremors, 194. 
Elevation of mountains, 146, 200, 202, 
299, 336. 

continents, 298-299. 
Encrinites, 171. 
Eocene Period, 324. 



Equndor and Peru, earthquake of, 

197. 
Eras, geological, 324. 
Eruptions, volcanic, 247. 

Fairies, 5. 

Falcon, the, in Alps, 136. 

" Fan-structure," 310. 

" Faults " and fractures, 200, 313. 

Features characteristic of mountains, 

177. 
Ferns, 118. 
Fishes, Age of, 322. 
Fissures, 268. 
Fohn, the, 84. 
Foraminifera, 172. 
Fox, the, in Alps, 127. 
Frog, the, in Alps, 137. 
Frost, effects of, on mountain rocks, 

212. 

Game-birds, in Alps, 137. 
Ganges and Brahmapootra, 167. 
Geikie, Sir A., on influence of Scot- 
tish scenery, 21. 

on the Highland plateau, 284. 

on the mountains of West Suth- 
erland, 296. 
Giant's Causeway, basalt of, 279. 
Glace, Mer de, 229. 
Glacial drifts, 227. 
Glacial region of vegetation in Alps, 

116. 
Glaciers, erosive power of, 228. 
Glare from snow in Alps, 76. 
Gneiss, 156, 292. 
Gold and silver in mountains, 61. 

in the earth, 350. 
Grampians, 273. 
Granite, 210. 

weathering of, 291. 

in mountain-chains, 312. 
Greenland, elevation of, 186. 
Green slates and porphyries, 275. 
Gulf Stream, 42. 

Hare, the, in Alps, 128. 
Hawaii, 256. 



Index. 



355 



Heat, effects of, on rocks, 1 54, 156, 160. 
underground, of the earth, 338, 

345. 
Hebrides, former volcanic action in, 

278. 
Height, influence of, on vegetation, 

107. 
Herculaneum, 254. 
Highest cluster of houses in the world, 

79. 
Highlands of Scotland, 284. 
Himalayas, description of, 6. 
Hutton," 142, 320. 

Iberian, or pre-Celtic race, 30. 

Ice Age, the, 65, 123. 

Ice, as a geological agent, 223. 

Igneous rocks, 155. 

Imbaburu, eruption of mud from, 259. 

Implements of stone, 31. 

Jackdaw, the, in Alps, 136. 
Jura Mountains, 300, 306. 
Jurassic rocks, 324. 

Kilauea, eruption of. (See Bird, 

Miss.) 
Kite, the, in Alps, 136. 
Krakatoa, 252. 

Labrador, elevation of, 192. 
Lake District, denudation of, 220. 

volcanic rocks of, 275. 
Lakes, origin of, 47. 
Lateral pressure, applied to moun- 
tains, 310, 315, 337. 
Lichens and mosses. (See Ruskin. ) 
Limestones, origin of, 151, 153, 169. 
Lisbon, earthquake at, 197. 
Livingstone, on splitting of rocks, 212. 
Lizard, the, in Alps, 137. 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 333. 
Lynx, the, in Alps, 128. 

Mal de montagne, 80. 
Mammals, age of, 322. 
Marmot, the, in Alps, 129. 
Mauna Loa, eruption of, 256. 



Mendip Hills, 327. 

Mer de Glace. (See Glace.) 

Metals, precious, 60. 

in the earth, 349. 
Metamorphic rocks, 156, 157, 298, 330. 
Mica-schist, 156, 293. 
Miller, Hugh, 150. 
Milne, Prof., on earth-pulsations, 193. 
Minor cones of volcanoes, 246. 
Miocene Period, 278, 324. 
Mississippi, denudation by the, 232. 
Moel Tryfaen, raised beach in, 186. 
Mont Blanc, 310. 

Monte Conto, downfall of, in 1618, 101. 
Monte Nuovo, 248. 
Moraines, 225. 
Mountain limestone, 152. 
Mountains, as barriers between na- 
tions, 26. 

as reservoirs of water, 43. 

human wants supplied by, 58. 

influence of, on climate, 62. 

causing movements in the atmos- 
phere, 65. 

as backbones of continents, 67. 

floras of, 103-124. 

forms of, how determined, 282. 

general features of, 177, 283. 

structure of, how determined, 308. 

elevation of, 174, 313. 

formed \>y huge dislocations, 313. 

Ruskin on uses of, 68. 

" on a scene on the Jura, 

300. 
" on flowers of, 107. 
Mud-flows from volcanoes, 259. 

" Needles," the, of Colorado, 221. 
Neptunists and Plutonists, 160. 
New England, elevation of, 192. 
New Zealand, elevation of, 190. 
Nummulites, 331. 

Or.D Red Sandstone, 150, 324. 
Olive region, the, 107. 
Organically formed rocks, 157. 
Ornamentation of mountains, 147. 
Oxygen, in air, 209. 



356 



Index. 



Paleozoic Era, 324. 

Permian rocks, 324. 

Pleistocene rocks, 324. 

Pliocene, 324. 

Plutonists, 160. 

Pompeii, buried up, 254. 

Precious stones in mountains, 277. 

Primary Era, 324. 

Pulsations of the earth. (See Milne.) 

Quinag, 297. 

Rabbit, the, in Alps, 128. 

Raised beaches, 185. 

Raven, the, in Alps, 136. 

Red clay, of Atlantic Ocean, 252. 

Reptiles", Age of, 323. 

Righi Mountain, fall of rock from, 99. 

Rivers, transporting power of, 161- 

168. 
Roches Moutonnees, 227. 
" Rocking Stones," 292. 
Ross and Sutherland, mountains oft 

315. 
Rossberg, the, fall of rock from, 99- 

101. 
Ruskin, on effect of tourists in Swit- 
zerland, 21. 
on effects of scenery on mythol- 
ogy, 22. 
on uses of mountains, 50. 
on formation of soil, 55. 
on lichens and mosses, 119. 
on the Alps, 289. 
on a scene in the Jura Mountains, 
300. 

Santorin, island of, 257. 
Scandinavia, elevation of, 180. 
Scenery, influence of rocks on, 219. 
Schists. (See Mica-schist.) 
Scotland, former volcanic action in, 

275. 
Sen-beaches, 183. 
Sea-level, constancy of, 179. 
Secondary Era, 324. 
Serapis, Temple of, 187. 



Silurian Period, 324. 

volcanic rocks of, 272. 
Shearing of rocks in mountains, 

316. 
Skaptar JSkull, lava-flow from, 255, 

260. 
Smith, William, 323. 
Snake River Plain, 258. 
Snow, lambent glow of, 77. 
Snowdon, volcanic rocks of, 272. 

denudation of, 239. 
Spectre of the Brocken, the, 78. 
Stability of the earth, 174, 314. 
Stanley, Dean, on capture of Canaan, 

32. 
Stone Age, 31. 
Storms on mountains, 81. 
Stratified rocks, table of, 324. 

how formed, 148, 176. 
Striae, glacial, 227. 
Submerged forests, 192. 
Suilven Mountain, 297. 
Sunsets. 71. 

Sutherland, West, mountains of. 
296. 



Taurentum, destroyed by downfall 
of rocks, 97. 

Thames, solid matter transported by, 
168. 

Thunder-storms, in Alps, 86. 

Tomboro, eruption at, 260. 

'•Tors," 292. 

Tourmente, the, 83. 

Transportation by rivers, 161, 166- 
169. 
by glaciers, 224. 

Triassic Period, 324. 

Types of plants and animals at differ- 
ent periods, 106. 



Upheaval theory of mountains, 247. 
Uses of mountains, 33. 



Valleys, how carved out, 214-230. 
Vesuvius, history of, 250. 



Index. 



357 



Vines, the region of, in Alps, 109. 
Volcanoes, number of active, 242. 

old ideas about, 244. 

structure of, described, 244. 

volcanic rocks of Great Britain, 
271. 
Vulture, the bearded, 134. 



Wall of Antoninus, 185. 
Waterfalls, origin of, 218. 



Water-vapour, in air, 34. 

condensation of, by mountains, 
34. 
Waves of population, 30. 
i Weald, the denudation of, 235-239. 
structure of, 303. 
Werner, 158. 
Wild-cat, in Alps, 128. 
Wolf, the, in Alps, 126. 

Zones of climate on the earth, 63. 



